Bend of Slate: Granny’s House

The Bottom is Route 686.

The Bend of Slate, as my cousin Scott described it in his guest post, is just outside the Grundy, Virginia, city limits, and “not too far upstream along Slate Creek where the highway hugs the base of a small, perfectly rounded mountain, making almost a complete circle before straightening out toward downtown Grundy. Slate Creek also bends around this small round mountain, and that section of the stream is called ‘Bend of Slate.’”

The locals call this little curve of land “the Bottom.” I’ve been told stories about the Bottom my entire life, some are so good that they are told regularly. But I am the only person in my immediate family who has never lived in the Bottom. While I don’t have many personal stories or memories of the Bottom, I feel like many of the stories of my parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and neighbors are mine because they include so many people and a place I love.

Mommy at the restaurant,  a few houses down from Granny’s House

Daddy was born in the family homeplace in the Bottom, down near the restaurant. The small wood frame house sits right on the bank of Slate Creek. The creek was the community playground – a place to swim, skip rocks, or enjoy a cool breeze. It’s mostly clear and shallow, its floor covered with smooth stones. But, after a big rain the creek might visit the backyard or basement or sometimes the edges of the bridges leading to Big John Stacy Road or the High School. The house sat atop a basement with the kitchen and bathroom in the back that faced the river. The family room and a bedroom at the front of the house faced a small yard and the one-lane road that traversed the Bottom from east to west.

The small yard and one-lane road were framed from the living room by a picture window. It let the morning and evening sun peek in to brighten the brown wood paneling on the walls. And it was one of Granny’s prized possessions.

This little house was home to my grandparents and all my aunts, uncles and a few cousins. And as my cousin Scott would say, Granny’s house was the first place many of us ever saw Uncle I.D. laying on a couch, but that is a story for another day.

It was also where my family started.

On a fall afternoon, soon after Daddy returned from his two years in the Army, he and Granny sat in the little wood-paneled living room watching TV. The living room held a couch, a couple of chairs and a television. Sometime that afternoon my Aunt Martha came home with a friend she thought should meet my Daddy. My parents met in the front room of that little house.

Growing up it was clear that my Daddy and his siblings loved their Mommy dearly. Granny is often a topic of conversation, she has at least two namesakes, and she is universally, by male and female children, called Mommy.

My Mommy has always described my Daddy’s sweet relationship with Granny in the story of the first time she ever saw him that fall afternoon in the Bottom. She says, sometimes with a grin or an eye-roll that “the first time I met your father was in the living room your Granny’s house. Granny was sitting in a chair watching TV and your Daddy was sitting at her feet. That should tell you something.” This is a picture of our family, and maybe many similar Appalachian families – staying as close as you can.

I love this story and the mental picture it paints of Granny’s oldest boy sitting with her on a random afternoon. As I end my first month of marriage I hope that the same closeness and affection live on within and among my parents and me and my new family. I hope that we all stay as close as we can regardless of age or circumstances.

Many good things happened in the Bottom, including the beginning of the marriage that created me, in the crowded living room at Granny’s house.

Bend of Slate: Top of the Bottom

Just outside the Grundy, Virginia, city limits, and not too far upstream along Slate Creek, the highway hugs the base of a small, perfectly rounded mountain, making almost a complete circle before straightening out toward downtown Grundy.

Slate Creek also bends around this small round mountain, and that section of the stream is called “Bend of Slate.”  The neighborhood on the narrow strip of land along the sandy banks at Bend of Slate–between the highway and the creek — is known locally as “the Bottom,” which I always took as “bottom of the mountain,” or “bottom of the holler,” or, for a while (before I could really read or write), some foreign word pronounced “boddum.”

I lived in and visited the Bottom throughout my childhood, and still drive through the old neighborhood whenever I’m in Grundy.  My memories include cousins, creeks, mountains, motorcycles, and walking down to the filling station to get a banana-flavored popsicle.

My fondest memories, however, cluster at the upstream end of Bend of Slate.  It was here, at the “top” of the Bottom, that Granny owned and operated Caudill’s Drive-In, with the creek on one side, a vegetable garden on the other, and a patch of trees out back casting shade over a gigantic natural sandbox, carried there by the creek, grain-by-grain over time.

I have sparse recollections of being inside Granny’s restaurant during its evening hours.  When the sun set and the small parking lot began filling up, I wasn’t allowed at the restaurant, I wasn’t allowed in the road, and sometimes I wasn’t even allowed outside of Granny’s house, which sat within sight of the restaurant a short distance “down” the Bottom.

During the day, and from as early as I can remember, I roamed the Bottom as I pleased. I spent most days chasing my older cousins, John and Jim, on their adventures; I went along on many of their outings, but got ditched on others when I was “too little” or otherwise bothersome (I spent an equal amount of time running swiftly away from John and Jim, but those are stories for a later day).  Another playmate, Harley, was closer to my own age. It seems to me now that everything Harley and I did back then resulted in one or both of us getting chased off the creek bank and switched into the house.

Granny and 8 of her 13 grandchildren.

So, whenever John and Jim ditched me for the day (or I had escaped them, as the case may be), and poor, slow Harley couldn’t outrun his chasing, switching mother, I found myself alone, still free to roam the Bottom on my own whim and leisure. I invariably found my way to the restaurant, where I knew Granny would be back in the kitchen, cooking and cleaning, getting set for that evening’s crowd.

Granny’s restaurant was a small brick building with a sign hanging on the corner which read “Caudill’s Drive-In.”  I don’t remember whether the sign lit up (I was never there at night, remember?), but I think “Caudill’s” was spelled out vertically from top to bottom, and “Drive-In” was lettered horizontally along the bottom of the sign.

A small door led into the front room; there was a pool table and a countertop bar across the room.  I’m sure there were booths and/or tables, but the front room usually was dark when I visited.  Beyond the front room and counter was a door to the kitchen, with a service window opening up behind the counter.  Somewhere in there was a snack rack, with chips, nuts, candy, and the ever-popular Slim Jim “smoked meat stick” on display.  I loved me some Slim Jims, and Granny knew it.

What I knew was that I stood a much better chance of getting a Slim Jim from Granny if I was alone.  I don’t remember how I stumbled upon this notion, and it only occurred to me years later that she probably didn’t want to hand out whole boxes of Slim Jims to a gaggle of Bottom boys every day.  Thus, on most visits to Granny at the restaurant, I was actually sneaking up there by myself.

Sometimes I’d get straight to the point and ask Granny for a Slim Jim, sometimes I even grabbed one on the way to the kitchen, then asked if I could have it while poised to rip open the package. Most times, however, I hung at the counter and beat around the bush while Granny worked and talked to me from the kitchen; at some point, she would stop what she was doing and come out to the counter, grabbing a Slim Jim on her way. She would open the package and toss the wrapper, and I would eat the whole thing right there while we chatted.

I don’t recall ever discussing with anyone my solo visits to Granny’s restaurant, until many years later, after everybody was all grown up and could go get their own Slim Jims.

Scott Caudill

The Bend of Slate

The Slate Creek winds down from Bradshaw Mountain along State Route 83 to Grundy, Virginia where it converges with the Levisa River and heads on into Kentucky to become the Big Sandy and then the Ohio River.

Just a few miles east of Grundy, situated along the shallow banks of the Slate Creek is the Bend of Slate, or as it is known to those who are from there, “The Bottom.” Between the 1940s and 1970s my father and his siblings were born and grew up in wide curve between a two-lane state road and the creek.

The curve was lined with small box houses, some of which were built onto and others that were later torn down and replaced with single or double wide trailers. Across the creek from the bottom was a one-lane road dotted with houses of a few families, some of whom you can still find there. At one end of The Bottom was “the restaurant,” official known as the Caudill’s Drive-In. My grandmother ran it for years – best hamburgers in the world I’m told.

The creek was not quite a stream or river. It could easily become swollen and forceful, quickly filling up backyards and basements. But most often it was the site of rock-skipping and swimming. Like the mountains, the river was part of the family.

The Bottom was home to a cast of unforgettable characters and the scene of a number of unbelievable stories of family, friendship, love, nonsense, and survival deep in the mountains of Central Appalachia.

Martha, W.J., Fred, Omalee, and I.D.

In the last few years, we have lost 2 of the 5 siblings my father’s family, Omalee and Fred. In an effort to hold on to and celebrate those memories I will be posting stories from time to time about the Bend of Slate. I will start with an essay by my first cousin Scott about our Granny. His daddy Fred, who left us last month, once said that Scott and Granny had a “special understanding.” Now I know what Fred meant.

Why I am Changing My Name

I spent several years writing about the odd and sometimes rude questions I was asked about being single. For instance, I often heard – why aren’t you married? Now, I am a little less than 100 days from getting married and I continue to be intrigued by the personal questions directed to me. People are funny.

When people learn that I am engaged they immediately ask about the wedding date and location. Interestingly, this started within 2 hours of our actual engagement, to which, of course, I had no answer. The next question is often some version of  “so, will you change your name?” This seems innocent enough, but it is almost always asked in a tone that suggests they think that they know the answer and have already decided how they feel about it.

I am a wildly independent and self-sufficient person. So much so that I have been described as “independent to a fault.” I, of course, don’t think that is possible (or something anyone would say to a man, but I digress). I have also had the same name for 40 years. All this leads people to assume that I would not change my name. They are also pretty sure that they know the answer because for years, literally years, I have said that I would never change my name. Yes, I said never. In the words of a former law professor, I long asserted that I would not want to be with a man who needs to “tag his property.”

Needless to say, I now get a lot of raised eyebrows and big eyes when I answer people with yes, I am going to change my name. People are genuinely shocked. Then they awkwardly ask why or I, feeling the need to justify, explain without prompting.

The truth is that I am just as surprised as anyone. At a time when the number of women in the U.S. who choose not to change their name when they marry is up 20%, I decide to change my name. I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

The idea of keeping my name felt very different when I had to answer the question for real. When I considered being part of a family beyond my family of origin, I thought about what I want my family to look/feel/be like. After carefully thinking about the consequences of changing my name, I realized that for me part of being a family is sharing a name. I grew up in a small town and we were one of the few families with my name. It was just ours and made it clear to everyone that we belong to each other.

I also realized that for me changing my name is more about developing the culture within my little family and less about the politics of patriarchy and male oppression.

When I think about what family is to me – it is a deep and clear connection to one another. Having the same name is a strong symbol of that connection. That belonging. Turns out, I am willing and happy to adopt a tradition that many, including my former self, disagree with to make this happen.

Of course, for many the debate about women taking their husband’s name is a feminist issue. It may seem that changing my last name isn’t very feminist of me. Especially after all those years of insisting I’d never do it. But, I think that the fact that I can choose makes it very much a feminist decision. And I’m a grown @$% woman and I do what I want.

 

Note: My fiancé is supportive of me keeping my name. He was clear that he would not consider changing his name, but he understood if I felt strongly about keeping mine. Neither of us is progressive enough for our family to take my last name.

The Bible and Yoga Philosophy: The Niyamas

The niyamas, one of the first two limbs of the eight-limbed path of yoga, are precepts that focus on our attitude and actions toward ourselves. While the yamas  focused on our outward attitude and approach to others, the niyamas are more intimate and self-focused.

In Sri Swami Satchidananda’s translation of Yoga Sutra 2.32 states:

Niyama consists of purity, contentment, accepting but not causing pain, study of spiritual books and worship of God (self-surrender).

The next limb, niyama, concerns observances. The five points of yama, together with the five points of niyama, remind us of the Ten Commandments of the Christian and Jewish faiths, as well as of the ten virtues of Buddhism. In fact, there is no religion without these moral or ethical codes. All spiritual life should be based on these things. They are the foundation stones without which we can never build anything lasting.

The Pine Hills Church yogin meditating on Isaiah 43:18-19 (Ishvara Pranidhana).

My yoga church small group has walked through the yamas and the niyamas illustrated by Biblical scripture in our weekly practice. These principles from yoga philosophy and the Bible speak directly issues we face in daily life and help to guide our meditation and our personal growth.

 

The following are the niyamas and what I believe is the corresponding teaching from the Bible. This is not an exhaustive list. However, I have endeavored to keep the scripture cited here in its original context keeping in mind that I am not a Bible scholar.

Niyamas

Santosha – Contentment – This, for me, is about gratitude – spending time being thankful and valuing what I have rather than wishing I had something else, which certainly takes practice.

Matthew 6:31-34 (NIV)

“So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Philippians 4:12-13 (NIV)

“I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”

Tapas ­– Self Discipline – This is not just about self-control, but also learning from difficulty, finding the lesson within the heat of the trial, pain, or challenge of life.

1 Cor. 9:24-25 (NIV)

“Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.”

Job 23:10 (NIV)

“But he knows the way that I take; when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.”

Proverbs 25:27-28 (NIV)

“It is not good to eat too much honey, nor is it honorable to search out matters that are too deep. Like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control.”

Svadhyaya – Self-study – Like the yama satya, this is a lot about truth. When we turn our light of awareness on ourselves and honestly look at who and what we are, only then, can we grow. No one can grow out of a place of denial or lies.

Ezekiel 18:27-28 (NKJV)

“Again, when a wicked man turns away from his wickedness which he has committed and practices justice and righteousness, he will save his life. Because he considered and turned away from all his transgressions which he had committed, he shall surely live; he shall not die.”

Haggai 1:5-7 (NKJV)

“Now therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts, ‘Consider your ways! You have sown much, but harvest little; you eat, but there is not enough to be satisfied; you drink, but there is not enough to become drunk; you put on clothing, but no one is warm enough; and he who earns, earns wages to put into a purse with holes.’ Thus says the LORD of hosts, “Consider your ways!”

Matthew 7:5 (NIV)

“You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

Ishvara Pranidhana – Self-surrender – Recently I was at the funeral of a lovely and godly woman. The priest’s homily talked of her organization and preparedness in daily life and for her eternal future, which made her a wonderful mother, partner, and friend. The priest’s went on to address the truth that to excel in the way she did she had to be in control. And that she liked control. His point was that she had to learn a final lesson by dying – that she could not control her future. She had to surrender herself to God and his way, even if it means death. This is the truth for all of us.

Romans 12:1(NIV)

“Therefore, I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.”

Galatians 2:20 (NIV)

“I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”

Matthew 16:24-25 (NIV)

“Then Jesus said to His disciples, ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves, and take up his cross and follow me.’ For whoever wants to save their life will lose it; but whoever loses their life for me will find it.”

The parallels found in the yamas and niyamas, the framework of yoga philosophy, to the word of God is interesting, but also encouraging. It seems that many of us, regardless of our church memberships or spiritual philosophies, believe in and value the same things. Humans are all different, yet the same. Peace.

This was the second post in a two-post series on the yamas, niyamas, and the Bible. You can read the first post by here.

 

 

 

Home Ownership Lesson #12: If it’s not the painter, it’s a thief

If it isn’t the painter, it’s a thief.

I try to do everything at once. It is just who I am. I can’t just watch TV, I have to watch TV and write emails or read the paper. I can’t just talk on the phone, I have to clean the house while doing it, or play solitaire to try to stay in the moment with the person on the phone. This same nonsense applies to the important things in my life as well.

I decided about six or eight months ago that no amount of new flooring or painted cabinets was going to make me happy in my old (first) house. The location of the house had grown inconvenient for my life and I was tired of not knowing any of my neighbors. I think the latter is a symptom of the welcome to my garage subdivision culture. We pull into our garages, close the doors and never see anyone. So, after months of looking at every house in the sweet little non-cookie-cutter/non-subdivision neighborhood I found my house. It is on the street I’ve wanted to be on and is super close to the nicest park in town. Winning.

Here’s is where the problems start. In the month of July and first week of August, I closed on two houses, moved out of one, started renovations on another, had significant renovation delays and drama, stayed temporarily in another house, took a trip, turned 40, and finally moved into the new house.

Turns out some painting contractors (or maybe all contractors) don’t actually do what they say they will do. This can result in starting 5 days late, doing a sloppy job, sending the same guy back 3 times to fix the problems he created the first time, and finally fixing the problems 3 weeks later. Then we discovered crumbling concrete under the carpet we removed from the basement. I say “we” here but I really mean someone far handier than me. The kitchen flooring had to be reimagined and is now vinyl instead of tile. The master bath shower is unique – meaning waiting a long time for a special door. And I won’t even talk about the half bath faucet that won’t be in for another 28 days.

Despite all of this I moved into the house this week. It is lovely and I am remarkably not annoyed by the paint issues that remain. It must be love.

The first night I slept in the house some friends came over to celebrate. I went to bed, slept great and woke up feeling at home. I started my day with a dog walk and as I passed my neighbor’s house she came outside and informed me that her home was broken into overnight.

Naturally, I went back to my house and locked the door and glanced at my car. It was unlocked in the driveway. Sure enough, the thieves had stopped at my place too. My car was a mess – compartments open, papers everywhere. I immediately noticed my change cup for tolls was gone – $15 dollars or so of quarters.

It instantly felt awful. I have never been robbed before. I let the neighbor know and then continued my dog walk on the phone with the boyfriend. I returned home and called the police to report it, ate breakfast, worked some and then hopped in the shower. A bit later as I was drying my hair it occurred to me that my garage door opener was in the console. I dropped the dryer and ran to the car. It was gone. Along with my iPhone charger. Some random people either have unfettered access to my garage or my garage opener is laying in a neighbor’s yard. I didn’t know which.

I lost it. Whatever tears wanted to come earlier were unstoppable now. All of the time and work, so many houses, the careful planning, the inspections and offers and counters and bargaining, the cleaning and packing and unpacking, rolling with the changes because this was my house on my dream Fort Wayne street, coupled with a milestone birthday. All of that and now I just wanted to feel HOME, to not have to keep on doing everything at once. It seemed totally unfair. I immediately called the garage people and the kind man at Raynor felt sorry for my weepy self and sent someone over the same day to reprogram my garage door openers. Not the welcome to the neighborhood I wanted.

After a day of crying and fixing and praying, I am back to normal. I love my little house and street. I have great friends that helped me to put up all my first-floor curtains, make sure my motion light works, and call/email/text me to make sure I’m okay. And, of course, I’m now locking everything all the time and keeping the car inside the garage. And in the process of the crying, fixing, and praying the house feels a little more like a home and a bit closer to finished. Although, I wish that activity hadn’t been driven by a welcome-to-the-neighborhood theft.

Just when you think you are doing all you can do at once, life throws something else at you.

At the end of this and most importantly I was reminded and will more often think on the truth that “I will both lie down in peace, and sleep; For You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.” Psalms 4:8 (NKJV). I’m grateful for that because if it’s not one thing, it’s something else.

What Happens When You Get a Bug in Your Ear

One of my very favorite southern sayings is “like a duck on a June bug.” You know, he was all over her like a duck on a June bug or like white on rice. I have friends who had a great time as kids tying strings to the legs of June bugs and watching them fly in circles.

These things make June bugs seems charming, even cute.

They are not.

This summer I came face-to-face, well, ear to body, with a June bug. We went to the woodshed and I survived, but it wasn’t pretty.

I was enjoying an evening at the Romp Bluegrass Festival in Owensboro, Kentucky. It was a lovely evening, despite the tiny little chairs we brought to sit on for hours. In an effort to relieve our rear-ends we laid on a blanket in the grass. It was just like a country song – laying under the stars with your boyfriend listening to music and enjoying a warm summer night. It was until, without warning, a bug flew into my right ear.

This wasn’t just a bug crawling on my head. This bug dive-bombed my ear and was in my ear canal before I could raise my hand to swat it away.

What happened next was mostly a blur of me crying, screaming, and dancing around trying to get the moving, wing flapping, biting, and scratching bug out of my ear. I can only imagine what the other concertgoers thought as they watched me. In a moment of desperation I opened our Nalgene bottles and poured water in my ear. By the time we reached the security tent the June bug stopped moving. I was relieved that the pain had stopped and horrified that I was bleeding from my ear and had a dead bug in my head.

The kind security guard called for a cart to take me to the EMT (the first aid tent closed at 8:00 p.m.) and talked to me until it arrived. Very encouraging. But that feeling quickly faded when the cart arrived. The driver, a man I can only describe as Bubba, told me to get in. He was accompanied by what appeared to be his girlfriend and her little sister, who was holding a dog. I explained the problem and the little girl, sitting next to me, said “you can get a bug in your ear?” I braced myself.

We started down the narrow road, carving a path through the concertgoers who were surely camping (all night – long after first aid closed). I noticed the cart slowing and heard Bubba call out to a man at our right as he stopped the cart to say, “hey man how’s it going?” I was near the end of my rope, as nicely as I could I said “dude, seriously?” He promptly starting moving and announcing that there was a “woman in the cart who is bleeding.” This did not do much to move the crowd.

We arrived at the ambulance. The EMT was not there. But in the distance we saw a small form running toward us. He arrived and while nice he seemed about 19. He looked in my ear and promptly declared that he could not see anything, “could not do anything” for me and that I would have to go to the hospital.

We explained that we are from out of town and aren’t familiar with Owensboro or the hospital. He attempted the give us directions, which culminated in, “Do you have GPS? Use that.”

We walked silently back to the car. In the dark. In the middle of a field in Owensboro, Kentucky.

I started to cry – the I-am-at-the-end-of-myself slow weeping – as I opened my Google Maps app and found the directions to the hospital. It was nearby.

I walked into the emergency room and spoke to the nice lady at the registration desk. I gave her my information and story with big tears rolling down my cheeks. She sweetly asked if I was alone, I said no and that I am from out of town. She tilted her head and looked at me as only an elderly southern woman can and said slowly and sweetly, “bless your heart.”

Then we sat in the waiting room for an hour, my head in the only position that wasn’t painful and bleeding on my boyfriend’s shirt.

After an hour they called my name. I went back and met with a cheery physician’s assistant who wanted to know “what’s going on tonight?” Through my now dry swollen eyes I explained that there is a bug in my ear.

He took a look in my ear and proclaimed that he “could see something brown and it could be a bug, but it could be earwax.” He does not know how close he came to getting smacked in the face. I calmly but condescendingly explained that I could feel the bug moving in my ear (back when it was alive) and I am certain that is not earwax. Suddenly, he was a bit more motivated to take a closer look.

We went into a procedure room where I promptly refused to lay on the bed because there was a distinctive looking black hair on it. We moved rooms. He was annoyed. I was indignant.

I laid down on my side in the clean room. The PA took forceps with a long nose and immediately dove into my ear. I immediately screamed and insisted on sitting up. As I did I watched as he examined a tiny piece of something he pulled out of my ear, which he described as “not part of your ear.” Duh.

Meanwhile, I was reeling from the pain. He did not warn me that taking whatever was in there out would be far more painful than when it went in (and that was very painful). I asked, nearly begged, if there was another way? He offered irrigation but said it might cause the bug to break apart and that did not seem desirable.

So, I braced myself, squeezed my sweet boyfriend’s hand, and employed my yoga breathing as he made 3 more pulls from my ear. The last drew out the bulk of the bug’s body to which he exclaimed “oh my God.” Turns out, it was a bug. I exclaimed, “thank you, Jesus.”

I thought we were finished, but he explained that he thought that there was a leg left behind in my ear (we counted only five on the bugs body). He could not go searching for it because of the blood and swelling and danger for my eardrum, but “it isn’t a big deal, it will come out in wax.” Easy for him to say, he didn’t have a bug leg in his ear.

I was release from the hospital a short time later. The next day we returned to the festival (I wore ear plugs), listened to some great music, and celebrated me not having a bug in my ear.

I am still okay with bugs and my ear no longer hurts, but I’ll never hear the old saying “put a bug in someone’s ear” quite the same way ever again.

Appalachia Natives: The Mountains Do Not Limit Us, We Do

I recently met with a former coal and gas executive from the Midwest. He used to travel to Central Appalachia – Eastern Kentucky – to supervise mining operations. This is same section of Central Appalachia where I was raised; in fact the mines he visited were within an hour or so from my childhood home.

He shared a couple of great Central Appalachia tales with me – gun-wielding grannies and copper thieves. But the most interesting description he gave was about how he felt in the mountains. He had never been in mountains so steep or been in a place where the sun comes up before you can see it and it disappears behind a mountain before it gets dark.

He said, “I felt claustrophobic.”

This made me think about how those mountains make me feel. To me those mountains are like a warm blanket surrounding, nurturing, and protecting all who walk under them. Keeping the good in and the bad out.

Then I thought about how the landscape of the Midwest, where I live now, made me feel when I first arrived. The word that immediately came to mind was exposed. I felt exposed by the size of the sky, the distance of vision, and the constant wind. I have never been exposed to this much sky for this length of time (thus my fixation with sunrises and sunsets). In the mountains of Central Appalachia the sky is always framed with the jagged edges of tree limbs and mountaintops like a giant living, real-time painting.

This discussion reminded me of a quote from a book I read in college – Salvation on Sand Mountain by Dennis Covington. Mr. Covington writes about his drive from Alabama to and through these very mountains and my hometown of Grundy, Virginia.

All along the highways through Tennessee and southwest Virginia, the signs were everywhere: Crazy Joe’s Fireworks, Jack Daniel’s whiskey, drag racing, turkey shoots, and barbecue. The South they suggested was straight out of the movies – idiosyncratic, lazy, restless, and self-absorbed. And that was what Jim and Melissa and I talked about on the drive, the discrepancy between the South of the popular imagination and the one we lived and worked in every day. But once the road narrowed and entered the mountains, the signs disappeared, replaced by mine tipples, mantrips, and long lines of train cars filled with coal that steamed in the rain. The last motels and hospital were at Grundy, Virginia, a mining town on the lip of a winding river between mountains so steep and irrational, they must have blocked most of the sun most of the day. It is difficult to imagine how children can grow up in such a place without carrying narrowed horizons into the rest of their lives.

But Grundy was an oasis compared with the country between it and Jolo.

He, like my friend, saw the mountains as hard – hard to adjust to, hard to live in, and hard to understand. They immediately saw the limitations of the mountains.

As a child of those mountains it never occurred to me that the mountains were limiting, restrictive, or negative. It never occurred to me that the mountains were preventing me from seeing something more. When I lived in the mountains I never missed the orange and pink glow of the sun as it came up and went down along the horizon. Rather, I enjoyed the light as it slowly lowered down the hillside in the morning and as it retreated up the hillside in the evening. Neither one is limiting, only different.

The mountains were a vast playground of trees, moss, creeks, and rocks – where the only rule was to be back before dark. All of those hills, rocks, crevices, streams, and hollers were a big classroom for learning life skills. These are a few of my favorite lessons :

• In order to walk down the side of a hill without falling adjust your stance, turn your feet horizontally and descend slowly.
• If you want to create an extra source of water for yard work then you dam up a section of the creek, gravity feed the water down the holler, then pump it up the hillside.
• Always make sure your walking stick is sturdy.
• Never kill a black snake, because it eats the rodents.
• Be careful what you do at the head of the holler because it will show up at the mouth – it all runs downhill.
• Respect everyone and things that are bigger, stronger, and/or more powerful than you – the mountain, weather, a loaded coal truck, bears, and water.
• Never kill a mama bear or a deer that isn’t big enough and throw the fish back. If you kill it, then you eat it. No waste.
• Don’t be a wimp. Play when you are hurt, work when you are tired.
• Never forget where you came from or deny your family.

All those lessons live on and color the life we make in and out of the mountains. Just like the mountains, those lessons are timeless. And what we learned from and in the mountains can carry us far beyond and right back to where we started, if we choose to wander.

The mountains don’t narrow our horizons, only we do that.

A Christmas Wish: To Love Our Differences

I promised myself that I would not spend my holiday on my phone. But, I allowed myself one round of Facebook on Christmas Eve morning. I scrolled through the standard holiday wishes, complaints and celebrations about the unseasonably warm weather, political rhetoric of all sorts, and pictures of parties and food. But there was one post that caught my attention. I stopped and thought about the post. It made me feel both happy and sad.

A friend and colleague of mine posted a holiday wish that was different than the others. It was a sincere Christmas wish and blessing, for sure, but there was no decorated tree, nativity scene, Biblical quote about the birth of Jesus, or reminder about the “reason for the season.” All that was missing because my friend is a devout Muslim.

This message is something very different from what I see in my social media feed, on the news, and in the world. It was lovely to see my friend support and respect his many Christian friends who don’t share his beliefs. He didn’t have to; he could have ignored Christmas like many Christians ignore or are unaware of the holidays he celebrates with his family. He clearly values his community and his friends, but even more I believe that he honors his own beliefs by honoring others. Even those who are not like him.

Ahmed’s thoughtful and loving message is a reminder that we don’t have to hate people who are different. Someone else’s beliefs are not by their mere existence an attack on my beliefs because they are different. We can love, serve, befriend, and care about those who are different from us without compromising our own values and beliefs.

My Christmas and New Year’s wish is that I and many others will make the choice to learn about and from our differences. Or at the very minimum learn to respect the different lives and beliefs of others – whether that difference is religious, political, socio-economic, a preference for Star Wars over Star Trek, or just a different accent.

That is love. And isn’t Christmas all about love? I believe it is.

 

My Appalachian Accent: You Aren’t From Here Are You?

This week I met a woman who seemed surprised that I still have an accent after living in Northeast Indiana for nearly five years.

Her surprise made me think about the regular conversations I have about my accent and dialect. The following is an example of a typical exchange that occurs multiple times a week, still, with new colleagues, business people, clerks, tellers, and others I talk to as I go about my life (I talk a lot).

Me: Hi, how’re you?

Midwesterner: Fine. You aren’t from here are you? You sound Southern. (It really comes this quickly.)

Me: No

Midwesterner: Where are you from? (Sometimes they guess and when they do it is most often Texas, Georgia, Tennessee, or Kentucky in that order. The people who guess the last two know accents. The first two are way off).

Me: I am from Virginia.

Midwesterner: Really? What part? (As it turns out, many people do not consider Virginia Southern or Appalachian and are shocked that my accent could come from Virginia.)

Me: Southwestern Virginia in the mountains near Kentucky.

Midwesterner: Oh, yeah, West Virginia.

Me: No, but West Virginia is only about 15 minutes from my Mommy’s house.

Midwesterner (usually looking confused): When did you move?

Me: Four and a half years ago.

Midwesterner: Oh. Really? You’ve been here a while. (Looking shocked).

People assume that after five years I would talk differently, less like me and more like them. Sometimes they say it directly and others just offer a surprised “oh.”

This is the problem when you have a pronounced accent and dialect and you don’t do a lot of code switching. Code switching is defined by dictionary.com as the alternate use of two or more languages or varieties of language, especially within the same discourse. Code switching as it relates to Appalachian dialects and accents is discussed in a delightful post on The Revivalist.

My accent and dialect are pretty standard Central Appalachian. I do not have the thickest accent compared some other people from the mountains of Southwest Virginia, Southern West Virginia, Eastern Kentucky, East Tennessee, and Western North Carolina. My accent and dialect have not changed much since leaving home in 1997. Although I have noticed that occasionally instead of saying r-eye-ght I will say right in a more neutral accent and ain’t slips out far less than it used to. My brother-in-law recently called me out for saying “soda” instead of “coke” or “pop.” Otherwise, my accent is pretty static.

When I moved to the Midwest I assumed that people would take note of my accent as it happens quite often in other places, even in some parts of Central and Northern Virginia. I dealt with this in college at the University of Virginia, as I have traveled through the United States and the world, and most recently and intensely in my time in the Midwest.

Most people are nice about it, even though they sometimes point out my accent as though they are pointing out a pimple or a gray hair. They say that they think it is cute or charming. Sometimes this goes too far when I am asked to “talk some more” as though I am a performer. While others, not realizing how personally I take the way I talk, might crack a joke about my family tree or being a hillbilly or redneck, but they are not the worst. There is a small group that I encounter from time to time who judge me immediately as ignorant, racist, or wrong.

My accent immediately gives people information about me and it is always filtered through the listener’s opinions of Southerners, and more specifically Appalachians. Recently, I’ve heard “maybe if you stay here long enough you’ll learn how to talk.” This Midwesterner was teasing when she said it, but I believe, as it has often been said, that there is an ounce of truth in all teasing. Then there was “it’s because you sound so different,” offered as a reason for the people not being welcoming. Right or wrong, it is clear that people have a hard time ignoring or accepting a different accent without question or comment.

When I moved to the Midwest I realized that I could hear my own accent. Everyone else sounds different and it makes my accent audible to me, which was a first. At home I don’t notice, because everyone sounds similar. So, I know what my accent sounds like and I am okay with it. In fact, I love it. I love it because I hear the mountains in my voice. I hear words and sayings that my parents use and things my grandmother said. There is history, heritage, and culture in my accent and dialect. I think it is interesting and special. As the writer in The Revivalist post noted “Appalachian accents are like no other.”

But I have noticed that I am a bit weary of explaining the way I talk. There is a kind of lonely in living in a place where no one talks the way I do. It certainly draws people in and creates conversation, but not always in a comfortable way. And there is a fear that those that ask about it and some who don’t are assuming the worst about me.

Over the years I have heard friends from home say that they hate our accent. Many of those friends moved away and made a conscious effort to change the way they talk. While I will never consciously change my accent or dialect, I understand better now why others do. I will work hard to keep my accent, but my experience in the last five years makes me empathetic for my Appalachian friends and family who made those changes. I get why they did it.

It can be tough living in a place where no one sounds like you.