[caption id="attachment_3665" align="alignright" width="180"] My Mother[/caption]
What is it about Appalachian women?
Take my mother for instance. She is 64 as of today (happy birthday, Momma!) and still a tornado of a woman.
Two weeks ago, I listened as she scolded neighborhood hoodlums from her porch in Southeast Roanoke. These were probably shirtless boys, thin to the ribs, running around in baggy jeans, maybe with knives, maybe with guns. Riotous packs carouse her neighborhood day and night. Mother doesn’t mind them until they try cutting through her corner yard.
She stopped me mid-conversation. “Woah’now,” she yelled, “There will be none of that. You get your little asses right back in that street.”
I could practically hear the boys freeze. I imagined them standing perfectly still between her porch and the back fence, their jaws drooped open because no one ever calls them out.
On my end of the line, two hundred miles away, I held my breath and waited to see what this wild woman would do. Thirty-seven years into knowing her, and I still can’t guess.
Only one of the trespassers had the cohunes to talk back. For all his adolescent bravado, he was reduced to a whiny excuse. “Buuuut she was chasin us.”
A lone girl waited for them at the edge of Mother’s yard. An Appalachian woman in training, she had these ruffians on the run. I couldn't tell why, but now the boys were stuck between her and a crazy old lady.
I can speak from experience. Mother has whooped fellers bigger than these, and I don’t mean a polite whack on the behind. She can sling a belt and words all at once, roughing you up on the outside and the inside.
I was starting to worry for these boys. They were in for it.
Then all of sudden, she hollered back, “Well, stupid,” she said with mock indignation, “If a pretty girl is chasin ya, why don’t ya let her catch ya?”
Then she erupted with the hoarse laughter of a former-smoker, and released the boys from her verbal grip. I could hear their footfalls as they rushed back to the pavement.
“Oo’yeah, I got him good,” she said, returning her attention to me, “He’s just a’blushin.”
What could I say?
“Give ‘em Hell, Momma” was the only option. The screen door thumped behind her, and I marveled over my Mother at the other end of the line.
Living with Appalachian women is exhilarating. From minute to minute, you don’t know if you’re going to be whacked upside the head, lovingly picked on, made to massage their feet, or held like you’re the last person on Earth.
Love and fury, it all comes full throttle.
Willie Davis has written a story about women like this. His protagonist, a young man named Jesse, falls in with ladies who are wild and tender in turns. They are not above using a shovel to keep you in line or sewing up your busted head in the open air of a Hazard County porch.
Published by storySouth, “A Family of Women” captures an elusive feminine bluntness that I have long admired.
Do these ladies strike you as familiar too?
If so, tell us all about the Appalachian women that you love and/or fear.

*

A FAMILY OF WOMEN
BY WILLIE DAVIS
I didn’t know how, and I didn’t want to know how, but on the first night Hannah Holiday and I spent alone together, she told me how she hit that boy with a shovel, as casually as if she were talking about last night’s dreams. To hear her tell it, the kid had had it coming for a long, long, long time. He was begging for it, practically on his knees praying for a right-thinking adult to pound some sense into him. No one liked that boy. He swore and spat at women, gave the finger to cars, and pushed little kids around, even ones as young as her daughter Abby had been, and she was just barely out of diapers at the time. Clearly, he took after his jailbird father the car thief even more than his half-mad junkie mother. Besides, the boy was so goddamn filthy that anyone could see the lice treating his upper body like a playground, leaping from his curls to his ear to the collar of that brown and yellow striped shirt he wore every single day of his life like he was some ragamuffin Charlie Brown, and she wouldn’t normally let him around her daughter if he was offering candy and flowers, because she didn’t want her to catch Ebola or some such thing. When that boy shoved her daughter down and stood over her laughing, Hannah Holiday simply did what any normal parent would do and went to scare the kid. If she aimed to hurt him, then this world would be one delinquent lighter, she can guarantee you that, because she would have cocked that shovel back and treated that boy’s head like a tee-ball, and you better believe there’d be lot of homeless lice in Hazard, Kentucky. As it was, she barely tapped the boy, but had to take him to the doctor’s on account of his bleeding. She drove him to the hospital herself, because she didn’t want any real harm to come to the boy. And if it’d really been so bad, why didn’t they charge her with anything? You can’t just go smacking kids who don’t deserve it with a shovel and not get charged for it, now can you? That right there shows a lot of what they say about her was garbage.
CONTINUE READING

Have you ever fallen for a dimwit? That is to say, have you ever overlooked social awkwardness, an oversized noggin, a nervous condition, or digestive problems because this person, though full of quirks, is nice to you, nicer than the rest of the world, and that just makes you happy?
My hand is raised high in the air right now. If yours is too, then you might identify with Robert Gipe's very short story "Troubled Colon." It was published in the Fall 2010 issue of Appalachian Heritage.

*

TROUBLED COLON
BY ROBERT GIPE
[caption id="" align="alignright" width="184"] Colon in Felt[/caption]
My boyfriend, Willett, is in the bathroom. He has a troubled colon. I’m in love with a boy with a troubled colon. I say this in my mind to the stringy-headed girl up in the check-cashing booth at the grocery store in Willett’s town in Tennessee. I don’t say it out loud. I say it in my mind. What I say out loud is:
“Can I use this phone?”
And that girl says “yis” through her no se and turns and walks away like she can’t bear to watch me using her phone. But it’s not her phone. It’s the store’s phone. Her phone says “dial 1-800-hateful.”
I call my aunt June and say, “What are you doing?” She says, “nothing,” and I say, “This boy is strange. He talks all the time, and he ate too many hot peppers at the Chinese and he’s been in the bathroom a half hour.” My aunt June says, “Is he okay?” And I say, “I guess,” and I turn around and my boyfriend, Willett, is coming up the dog food aisle with toilet paper stuck on his shoe. I hear that girl in the check-cashing booth snort, and I know I better stay on the phone or I will have to whip her stringy-headed Tennessee ass right in the middle of her snotty Tennessee store.
CONTINUE READING

I remember sitting in my Daddy's johnnyboat as morning fog burnt off Smith Mountain Lake. The plop of fishing lure and landing loons were the only sounds. Trees and rippling water were the only sights. This was twenty years after the lake was made by a hydroelectric dam, and we still found unspoiled spots.
Now you can't spit on the shoreline without hitting a McMansion. They loom over the water. Big and cheap, the houses are spaced too close to retain a rural identity but not close enough to remotely resemble smart growth. They are sprawling lakeside suburbs, and in my opinion, the perfect waste of a special place.
I've only seen two positives come of the growth around Smith Mountain Lake. First, it's been an economic boon for a couple of counties that have never seen such a thing. Second, it seems to have inspired a beautiful short story.
In "The Weight of Water," Michael Chitwood personifies the tension between developers and old timers at James Mountain Lake, a fictitious body of water that bears a striking resemblance to the one outside my hometown. It is man-made, named after a nearby mountain, and experiencing explosive growth.
Chitwood builds his stories around two characters, both symbolic but believable. Maude Thurman, a crotchety loaner, remembers the river and fields that lie under the lake. Walter Lyon, a devout Baptist, bought large tracks of land as the lake was being built; now he builds sub-developments on them. Their conflict over Maude's property reveals something surprising--a depth of faith that you might not expect from either character.
Have you seen somewhere you loved change so much that you hardly recognize it? Are we doing enough to protect precious places? And, what about the other part of this story; how does faith shape our physical world--what we build and what we save?

*

The Weight of Water
by Michael Chitwood
Maude Thurman had never prayed in her life and she wasn’t about to start. Walter Lyon could chat with the clouds all he wanted, like a God would care if Walter built another subdivision or not. In fact, if Maude would consider praying for anything it would be that a hole would open up under this lake and it would drain like a bath tub when the stopper is pulled.
That was a good thought. Fish flopping in the mud. All those houses and barns the water had covered up rising again into the air. The old landscape returning and the river flowing again under the cliffs across the way.
She would miss her visitor. Actually she didn’t know if the visitor was singular or plural. It was usually dark so she couldn’t see “him” or “them.” The sound of the water being moved could be a “the m.” But he was part of the lake and she’d let him go if she could be shed of the weight of all that water.
But the lake wasn’t going anywhere. One of the things that Maude did best was face facts and that was a fact—the lake was here to stay. Too many people like Walter had way too much invested to let anything happen to the lake.
For a moment she remembered the tug of the river when she and Tanner waded there in the late afternoon. A river is a living thing, she thought. It has moods and changes its look. It can be angry. It can dwindle and seem lovelorn, wistful. They killed her river, drowned it, to make this lake.
CONTINUE READING

My last minute gifts are sugar cookies. Yesterday, I baked two hundred of these golden little treats. Today, I am icing them and packing them in cellophane bags. They're as inexpensive as can be, but they take some time. With Christmas less than a week away, there's not much of that left.
Before you fire up the oven, you might want to check out these great, last minute gift ideas. They're all from or about the Appalachian South. Buying them is much faster than baking, and you can get them all quickly enough to have them under the tree on Christmas Eve.
Summer Peaks Series from Emerson Creek Pottery
Summer seems like a long ago memory, but Emerson Creek brings it all back. Its Summer Peaks series pays homage to the pottery's notable neighbor--The Peaks of Otter. This popular Virginia hiking spot is depicted as soft blue ridges surrounded by irises and offset with a field of green.
Emerson Creek Pottery has been making signature pieces like this since 1977 utilizing a unique technique. They apply natural pigments to an absorbent glaze with a Japanese Sumi-e brush. Their Website explains that the "the spontaneity of the brush stroke, combined with the accuracy of design" is key to the pottery's distinctive look.
If you order online, Emerson Creek Pottery can usually ship your order the following day. This week, it's probably wise to select Priority Mail for a two to three day delivery time.
no prescription furosemide get="_blank">The Homecoming from you can i buy clomid online r local bookseller or Amazon
Have I ever mentioned that Elizabeth Walton was my brother's imaginary friend?
She was blamed for every mishape that Michael ever caused. A broken glass-Elizabeth did it. A missing toy-Elizabeth took it. A half empty pack of cookies-Elizabeth ate them.
This fictional family played an intimate role in my childhood, and they actually did so under two names. One was the Waltons, a name created for television. The other was the Spencers, the name used in Earl Hamner's semi-autobiographical novels that inspired the hit show.
Of Hamner's warm, carefully crafted books, my favorite is the The Homecoming. Set in the 1930s, it is about the Christmas that Clay Spencer could not be found. Forced by the Depression to work forty miles from home with no car, he took a bus back to his family on the weekends. On Christmas Eve, Clay did not arrive as scheduled, so his eldest son, Clayboy, searched for him. In the process the teen found an angry deer, a fearsome county sheriff and bootlegging old ladies. In short, he found adventure.
This heartwarming, beautifully written book has held my attention for the twenty years since I first read it. It is sure to please all of the bookworms on your list. It can still be ordered from Amazon and arrive in time for Christmas or, even better, ask your local bookseller if they can get you a copy in time.
JetBoil from Blue Ridge Mountain Sports
I own one of these. In fact, I used it to make coffee on last summer's camping misadventure. When you're ready for a warm cup of joe or you need to boil water for one of those instant, camping foodpacks, it can't be beat.
It's light and compact, packing down to the size of a water bottle. With a built-in coffee press and optional attachments for a fry pan and pots, it is basically a little stove to-go.
With Blue Ridge Mountain Sports, based just outside of Charlottesville, you can order as late as December 22 and still receive your package before December 25. Click around when you get to the site; this locally grown outfitters has everything from winter gloves to kayaks.
Preserves and Fruit Butters from West Virginia Fruit and Berry
Aren't edible gifts wonderful?
I especially like those with a decent shelf life. Long after the fudge, cookies, and peanut butter candy is gone, I will sometimes find a jar of apple butter given by a friend. It's like Christmas is revived when I spread a heaping spoonful across piping hot toast and bite into it. Yum.
The folks at West Virginia Fruit and Berry have mastered the craft of canned treats. They make every kind of imaginable preserve--plum to blueberry--along with all natural butters made from apples, pumpkin, cherries, or peaches.  All of their products are free of additives, preservatives, and corn syrup.
If you're near Bridgeport, West Virginia, you can pick them up at the company's store, The Berry Patch. They are also available at gift shops throughout West Virginia and at Kroger grocery stores in Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, and West Virginia.

[caption id="attachment_2200" align="alignleft" width="327"] Mountain Calm by Scott Hotaling, 2008 Finalist, BRP Vistas, Courtesy ASU Outdoor Program[/caption]
Listen up, shutterbugs. The 8th Annual Appalachian Mountain Photography Competition is on. It's for professional and amateurs alike. With $4,000 in cash and prizes, there's plenty of reason to get out that old rangefinder and show your stuff.
Whether your favorite shot is a a white water kayaker going under or a single flower standing tall, the competition has a category to fit.
In addition to mainstays like "Adventure" and "Flora and Fauna," this year boasts a special grouping called The Parkway Tree Project. It "seeks to bring greater public awareness to the rich natural resources of the region and to document significant trees that contribute to the character, environment, and/or aesthetic of the Blue Ridge Parkway." Seems like a fitting tribute during The Parkway's 75th year.
Whether you submit or not, take a look at these winners from prior years. I'm partial to the first one--the tree bailer photo; it's got a little grit, a little haze, and I've always wanted to operate one of those.
Have a favorite?
If so, post a comment. Let us know!
[gallery]

Watch the trailer for Mutzmag: An Appalachian Folktale and let me know if we made the same mistake. I clicked play and thought, "It's a family film, set deep in the Appalachians, and it faithfully recreates mountain life around the 1920s or 30s? Oh, it's kind of like The Waltons."
I always liked The Waltons. The stories were solid and hopeful; the sets and costumes were true to their time and place; and the characters were believable archetypes from our region--the hardworking father, the crotchety granny, mischievous but goodhearted children. Each week, their drama revealed something pure about country life and optimistic about humankind.
With John Boy in mind, I leaned back, propped my laptop on my belly, and began to watch the full version of Mutzmag. The film opens with stark poverty. An ill woman is tending her garden, which is not filled with bounty but instead just a few square feet of cabbage. She is next to her room-sized shack. Inside, the walls are decorated with newsprint and her daughters sit amongst their few belongings.
From the window, the youngest--Mutzmag--sees her mother collapse. The scene cuts to the shack's single bed, where the mother says, "I hurt so bad. Lorda'mercy girls, I believe I'm a dying." And that she does. The girls burry her between her two dead husbands up the hill.
"This is off to a grim start," I thought as winter sets in and the three girls begin to starve. They head out, on foot, to find a better life. At nightfall, they knock on the door of a cabin to ask for food and lodging. I've read ""Hansel and Gretel." I knew that this would go badly, but I couldn't have imagined how badly.
I won't spoil it for you, but let's just say that the director, Tom Davenport, dances on the line between family fare and a true horror flick. Think of all the dreadful things that could happen with a witch and giant in the woods. A movie from Pixar or Disney might allude to them, but they let your imagination fill the gaps, right?
Not Davenport. Cannibalism, squirrel carcasses, and a grisly scene with a dog in a tote and a very big stick--they're on the screen, and it's scary. I cringed. My belly churned. I even closed my eyes once, thinking "Lord, if Elizabeth Walton saw this, she'd wet herself."
That's probably true. Mutzmag isn't right for the little ones, but if you have kids over age twelve, this is your chance to give them a good scare and maybe promote some family bonding. After this spine chiller, you won't be calling out "goodnight" from the next room like one famous mountain family. Your whole brood will be huddled right there in bed beside you.
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It sounds like the storyline from a Mickey Rooney flick. A bunch of youngsters get together. They decide to turn a small town on its ear by throwing a play in a barn and end up performing under the bright lights of New York City. Except this time the story is in color...and it's true.

Beginning this weekend, the Endstation Theatre Company converts a old dairy barn at Sweet Briar College into the stage for "Hamlet." Artistic director and co-founder for the Amherst, Virginia based troop, Geoffrey Kershner, told The Washington Post, "It's about the space. I'm interested in found space and developing a show in and around it."
This is the third such production on the campus where Kershner was raised as a theater professor's son. He knows every nook and cranny, and incorporates the best of them into his plays. A building with balconies lent authenticity to a legendary scene from "Romeo and Juliet." Fireflies brought a dash of natural magic to "A Midsummer Night's Dream."
With "Hamlet," Kershner is using the barn in a similar way. Polonius will die with a smear of blood on the barn window, and the play is set in Civil War era Virginia. The Danish prince may seem a little less Danish, going off to Richmond rather than France, but Kershner feels that Shakespeare's classic has a universal message. "[It] echoes so much war imagery," Kershner says. "I was really intrigued by that."
You can see the result's first hand beginning this Saturday night. "Hamlet" launches with a Light Up the Barn event, complete with a barbecue dinner and live music. Tickets are a bargain at $10.
As if that weren't "Mickey Rooney" enough, Endstation's resident playwright, Joshua Miikel, is actually headed to New York City. He has been invited to debut his newest play, Good Good Trouble on Bad Bad Island,at the 2010 New York International Fringe Festival - the largest multi-arts festival in North America.
I'm telling you, watch these youngsters from Amherst. They really are turning the town on its ear.

The blog Appalachian History just posted a simple, sweet poem that I thought you all might appreciate. It is entitled "My Great Aunt Arizona." It was written by Gloria Houston, a teacher, about her great aunt, who was also a teacher. It begins like this:
My great-aunt Arizona
was born in a log cabin
her papa built
in the meadow
on Henson Creek
in the Blue Ridge Mountains.
When she was born,
the mailman rode
across the bridge
on his big bay horse
with a letter.
The letter was from her brother,
Galen, who was in the cavalry,
far away in the West.
The letter said,
“If the baby is a girl,
please name her Arizona,
and she will be beautiful,
like this land.”
To read the full version, click through, or even better, pick up a copy of it. The poem was published as a children's book with lovely illustrations by HarperColins in 1991.

Shelby Lee Adams invited me to a party. It's this June in the backwoods of Kentucky, and it will celebrate his recent Guggenheim Fellowship. Mind you, I've never met the man. At this point, we had exchanged exactly one email each, and his contained this invite:

"A thought, I'm having a party in Leatherwood, Ky...If you're interested, you could attend. You could interview friends and subjects."

This is remarkable and not just because Adams' is a renowned photographer. (His work has been exhibited in scores of museums and is included in the world's best permanent collections.) I'm struck by the invite because he has been criticized by bloggers, reporters, and art critics--people like me.

For 36 years, Adams has followed a single, close knit mountain clan. The resulting images are arresting and, I've noticed, decidedly inclusive. He shows everyone from these Eastern Kentucky hollers--bare chested young men; pregnant girls; old folks with faces so creased they look like they're made from dried apples; snake handlers; mourners; dead people; children who are disabled or dirty, some in diapers, some dressed in their Sunday best.

 

 

Sherman with Hog's Head, 92

They're all here, and they're all staged. Adams' work is more portraiture than documentary. He composes his shots. He uses special lighting and props. It's not unusual to see beautifully lit hog parts or a living room papered with newsprint. The images are self-consciously raw. That's one reason they've taken so much heat.

Vicki Goldberg, a critic for The New York Times seems to both admire and critique Adams' work. She wrote the introduction to his 2003 collection, entitled "Appalachian Lives," but has also referred to his photographs as historical recreations, not contemporary depictions of mountain life. Others have said that they're romantic or manufactured. Bill Gorman, the Mayor of Hazard, Kentucky, went so far to say, “I don’t think this is average… I think it’s the kind of thing that sells.”

In my second email, I told Adams how grateful I was for the party invite, that I need to see if I can make it fit with work and family life, and I asked how he responds to this criticism. He explained that composing the shots actually creates an opportunity to collaborate with his subjects. He shows them Polaroids before any final photos are taken. "My work is collaborative because my subjects respond to the Polaroid’s and change or contribute to the compositions their ideas, locations and feelings," he said. "I think it’s a more honest exchange with no surprises."

There are other critics who reach beyond Adams and point at the subjects themselves. A. D. Coleman, a noted art critic, has said that Adams' pictures "call for a very sophisticated kind of reading. And I’m not sure that these people have the education, the visual educational background, to understand how these pictures read.”

Personally, I find this belittlement of mountain people infuriating. I think that the only ignorance it exposes is Coleman's, but Adams responded cooly with quotes from his subjects and fans:

"We know whether or not you're lookin' at us as some poverty stricken little poor feller. We know. I see a culture that's dying in your pictures. I see a way of life that's dying that may no longer exist. It's important what you do." -- Hobert White, photography subject

"Seeing that world through your eyes gave me something I never fully grasped before, and I'm not even sure if I can explain it to you. It gives me a kind of pride in the hardships we all survived. Pride in the goodness of those people -- my people." -- Sarah, an Appalachian native who now lives in Mississippi

Peggy & Albert, '99

Sarah's quote, in particular, struck me. I'm from Appalachia too, and I feel pride in mountain life. It's there in spite of the hardship, maybe even because of it. If I hadn't grown up huddled around a kerosene heater or drinking God awful, government-issued powdered milk, a piece of me would be missing. I wouldn't be a member of this clan.

This is where insiders, Appalachian natives, might look at these photos differently. Other folks see desperation and poverty; some even call Adams' photos "creepy." Many of us from the mountains see beauty and honor.

Sure, life there is hard. A dry ceiling and a full belly are never a given, but some things are. The sun is going to rise up over the ridge in the morning and burn off the fog. You can always walk through the woods with your grandkids and show them deer tracks. When you need them, kith and kin are a stone's throw away, ready to lend a hand, an ear, $5 for cigarettes, or an extra hamburger when they can afford to go out and splurge.

A. D. Coleman suggests that we aren't looking at these pictures right, but I can't help but think that there's another dynamic here. Maybe we know enough about mountain people to appreciate the full depth of Adams' work. Mixed with the obvious pain, we see people's pride, their love and the indescribable freedom that exists in their peculiar mountain lives. We can read these images because we, unlike Coleman, are part of the same clan. We are invited to the party.

View more of Adams' work.

What would you do if a specter started bustin' up your moonshine? Chase him with your musket and blow your hillside shack apart, of course!

Fashioned after Loony Tunes cartoons, County Ghostis a four part series of shorts. It opens with the above clip set on a ramshackle cattle farm. While this isn't definitively Appalachia, Mike Geiger, the series animator, explained to me that it could be:
- Where does your moonshiner live? Have a state or area in mind?
He lives in the town 20 miles south from wherever you are viewing the shorts from. If that place happens to be Miami...I guess he lives in Cuba.
- What was the inspiration?
I've been making kids cartoon for the past ten years. It's been really fun and rewarding, but definitely felt it was the time in my career that I wanted to showcase my own ideas. The inspiration for County Ghost was to simply create an animated show that I could have fun with. Ghosts, Moonshine, and Muskets seemed to be a winning combination of ideas to do so with.
- Are more episodes on the way?

There are a few ideas floating around for more, but for the time being the first four episodes make up the complete set. I have started working on a new series entitled "The Smile and Penny Show" which I'm hoping will allow me take what I've learned from the "County Ghost" series and push it even further.
- Has this series been featured anywhere or received any recognitions?
The first 4 episodes of the show have been picked up by MondoMedia ( a larger web content distributor ), so I'm hopeful it will soon be airing on their channel and pick up some additional interest and viewership.
If not, and the show does a quick crash and burn...it was still a blast to make.

Unleash you inner bookworm with this interactive Literary Map of North Carolina. Right off, I browsed the mountain section, and discovered that O. Henry's real name wasn't Oliver Henry; both were just pseudonyms. He was actually born William Sydney Porter in Greensboro, which coincidentally is where I went to college. See, following the lives of literary figures can be fun!
Okay, this is total geekery, and the map could be improved with full profiles of the authors. (Hear that UNCG, we want affairs, addictions, personal foibles, and suicides!) Anyone who has a penchant for Appalachian lit, though, should find this a user friendly tool.