When Roanoke's Crossroads Mall opened in 1961, it was like Christmas and Fourth of July combined. This was the first enclosed, suburban shopping center in all of Virginia. It drew customers and curiosity seekers from miles around. According to Steven Swain, a blogger who traced the mall's history, "Developer T.D. Steele and his designers created a unique and popular shopping experience for an eager public. Throngs of shoppers left the long-dominant downtown to stroll through a grand two-story interior shopping hall."

By 1962, two more suburban malls had opened in Roanoke, and around the same time, they popped up in cities and towns throughout the Appalachian South. Crossroads ushered in a new way of living, one that prioritized convenience and comfort. Shoppers no longer had to worry about weather, wind, or mud puddles. Their world was being primped and paved, and it was built to a new scale--one that fit the automobile. Errands were measured in miles not blocks, and walking would soon become outmoded.

Decades later, there is a lot of buzz about what was lost when we suburbanized the nation, but fifty years ago, Crossroads was groundbreaking. It helped mark the dawn of an era.

To commemerate this anniversary, The Roanoke Timesasked readers to share their memories about the mall. Surprisingly, only two have been posted. The first commenter, a fellow named Greg, glows over Crossroads:

"Crossroads was where we always went to see Santa and I remember him arriving by helicopter near the J C Penney’s warehouse which is now Gold’s Gym. There were so many cool things at the mall. The water fountain outside Penney’s, TIMEOUT arcade, Orange Julius, Michaels Bakery, etc. etc."

The second post (which is currently pending review) is mine, and it takes a different tone. I remember most of the stores that Greg names but in a less cheery light. I grew up about a mile from Crossroads Mall. We moved to the area when my parents divorced. My mother left her three bedroom house, the first and only property she ever owned, for a third-floor apartment near a rough and tumble drag called Williamson Road. This was the early 1980s. By this point, both the mall and the neighborhood had passed their prime, and some days, it seemed like my family had too. The Roanoke Times probably wasn't expecting memories like mine, but for me, Crossroads wasn't filled with wonders. It was a reminder of all that we'd lost.

***

I grew up one walking mile from Crossroads Mall. I say "walking" because that's how my family got there. We had no car, so on the day that food stamps arrived we hoofed up Roanoke's backstreets; across Hershberger Road's buzzing six lanes; and over forty yards of parking lot, which sizzled during the summer and swept wind like the plains all winter.

Most any time of year, we rushed for Kroger's automatic doors. Inside, we'd acclimate, wiping our foreheads or stripping off winter gear. We always had a carton of empty Dr. Pepper bottles, and I'd beg to slide them into the tall, metal deposit rack. It enthralled me, because from my height, it looked dangerous, like some mammoth glass-filled cage. When we had the change from our deposited bottles in hand, we'd begin to shop. Cost Cutter frozen broccoli. No-name butter cookies. Bagged breakfast cereal with poorly drawn mascots that no one recognized. Nearly expired meat. My brother and I would beg for names we knew from television--Snap, Crackle, and Pop; Pop Tarts; Pepperidge Farm--but Mother would tell, "This tastes just the same."

Our generic boxes and cut-rate finds would fill one, sometimes two, grocery carts. Mother wasn't eager to come back and do this again, so by the time we headed for a checkout lane, we'd have enough food to last all month.

Most cashiers smiled as we approached, overlooking our heap of discount groceries and the brightly colored, pretend money that paid for it. Occassionally, though, one would raise her brow or roll her eyes. That's when Mother turned fierce. After hauling two kids and clanking soda bottles for a suburban mile, she wasn't going to be judged. She'd jut her neck out, cock her head, and stare the woman down. I don't recall a cross word ever being uttered, but you could cut diamonds with her glare.

God love her; Mother gave surprisingly little thought to how we'd get all of that food home. Usually, we carried it in our hands--her hauling as many as eight bags, my younger brother with two, and me dragging three or four, whining about the taunt plastic that dug into my palms. Some days, Mother couldn't endure my complaining, so we took the bus. It reduced our walk to just a few blocks, which was better, but nothing compared to the few, glorious occasions when she threw her hands up, headed for a pay phone, and said, "Cost be damned. We're taking a cab."

With tip, I remember it ran about ten dollars. That was enough to force Mother, days later, to haggle with the electric company because our payment came up short, but it seemed well worth it at the time. After she called the cab company, we would stand at the curb outside Kroger, eyeing the long lane that extended clear to Kmart. We'd scan back and forth like any other family. To passersby, I figured it looked like we were waiting on some father-figure to pull the mini-van around. I could even convince myself of that. I'd block out the long walk there, the food stamps, and the coming cab. For those few minutes, I'd pretend that we were as normal and nuclear as anyone.

Then the yellow Mercury Grand Marquis would show. As soon as I spotted its unmistakable checkerboard pattern, my fantasy would shift. Where we were all-Americans a moment before, seamlessly blending at the mall, the cab gave us a mysterious edge. I imagined that we were set apart, that we were sophisticates who were always being driven around. The cab's trunk would spring open, and a friendly stranger would load our groceries. All we had to do was sit down. I took my time, now hoping to catch shoppers' eyes. I'd hold the door for my mother and brother, lingering outside the cab until one of them said, "Mark, git' in!"

I would ease onto the cushioned seat, and leave the door ajar, inviting shoppers to peek inside. They did so every time. Cabs picked people up in New York, in London, in Paris but not in Roanoke. It was a novelty. For all they knew, we were visiting from one of the world's great cities, shopping for provisions to take back to our downtown hotel where, later, we would dawn formal wear and wave for another cab. We'd be off to dinner with the mayor, local gallery owners, and perhaps a TV news anchor. We were guests. We might even be stars.

Our dinner companions would coo whenever mother slipped me sips of champagne. They'd give use private tours of their galleries at midnight. One would offer us his French countryside home for the summer, saying, "We just don't make it out there enough. Go. Go," and then he'd lean down to my height and wink at me. Whispering so that only I could hear him, he'd add, "Don't worry. I'll have the house staff fill the kitchen with all of your favorite brands."

The fight to save Blair Mountain from mountain top removal coal mining has reached new heights. Tonight at 8:00 P.M. E.D.T., CNN will bring this hotly contested issue to its viewers with an hour-long documentary called "Battle for Blair Mountain: Working In America."

If you've been reading The Revivalist for a while, you probably remember that West Virginia's Blair Mountain was the site of the largest armed insurrection since the Civil War. In 1921, as many as 15,000 miners faced down a coal company's hired militia in a fight for reasonable pay. Today, coal operators find themselves embroiled in another battle. This time they are pitted against environmentalists, historians, and health advocates who want to prevent them from blowing this mountain apart to access coal under its surface.

On the heels of the successful March on Blair Mountain, which attracted around 1,000 people in June , I heard about the upcoming CNN story. At first, I figured that it would be good exposure for a critical Appalachian issue. Then I saw this clip.

[youtube]4_IqoKbL44c&feature=relmfu[/youtube]

I don't know about you, but I was appalled by the amped up conflict between mining families and the folks trying to save Blair Mountain. My first thought was, "They are playing this all wrong. The choice isn't jobs or intact mountains." My second thought was, "I should talk to Brandon Nida."

Brandon is the Vice-Chair for Friends of Blair Mountain. He spoke with me just before the march, and he took time again this weekend to discuss the CNN coverage.

TR: Brandon, it's good to talk with you again. First, how did the march to save Blair Mountain go?

BN: The march went extremely well--we overcame every roadblock the coal companies threw out, and we significantly raised awareness of Blair Mountain and the threat of Mountain Top Removal (MTR). The energy created from the march is helping the whole MTR movement push forward and stay one step ahead of the coal companies.

TR: That's great. What has happened since the march?

BN: There have been multiple developments since the march. We filed a lawsuit after the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection refused to review the Lands Unsuitable for Mining Petition we submitted.

We are still pressing ahead with another lawsuit in federal court for the National Park Service to review the National Register for Historic Places delisting of the Blair Mountain battlefield.

And the biggest development has been our opening of the Blair Community Center and Museum. We have large tour groups that are starting to come through, and we are attempting to develop the area around heritage tourism. The community of Blair is very excited, and so are we.

TR: What do you think about the CNN clip that's online?

BN: The previews that I saw frame our struggle as a conflict between two sides and pits "environmentalists versus jobs." This is the standard framing that has been driven by Madison Avenue PR firms employed by coal operators. So the CNN special takes an establishment framework and misses the real story.
The conflict is really between mountain people and immensely powerful corporations. The real story is about our efforts to revitalize an area of West Virginia that has seen 50-60 years of job loss due to mechanization such as MTR.

We are trying to start local businesses and prosperity around the huge resource that is the Blair Mountain battlefield, as well as in other Appalachia communities that have their own unique offerings. But the CNN crew fell for the standard industry line that it is either jobs or environmental/health issues, when instead we think the American people are smart enough to figure out how to have both. So while the CNN documentary helps raise awareness, it also helps reinforce the narrative the dominant narrative coal operators have constructed.

TR: I didn't realize that big coal's PR firms were pushing this angle, but it makes total sense. If someone reading this post could do just one thing to help save the mountain, what would it be?

BN: For those people who would like to be involved, there are multiple entry points. We always need funds, so people can donate to our efforts to preserve the battlefield and build the community center and museum by going to www.friendsofblairmoiuntain.org. You can sign our petition. You can sign up for our email alert also at our website. If you would like to be more involved, send us an email, and we can discuss where you would like to fit in.

He might be crazy, but he ain't dumb. Ben Jones, the actor that played Crazy Cooter on the "The Dukes of Hazzard" TV show, is hosting one heck of a party this weekend in Sperryville, Virginia. It's a Hazzard reunion complete with appearances by the actors that played Daisy, Bo, Roscoe, Enos, and Cletus.
The cast will be joined by a stellar lineup of bluegrass acts, headlined by none other than Dr. Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys. They will be flanked by more than 75 General Lees, homemade homages to the 1969 Dodge Charger that became the shows icon and that prompted all boys my age to find the biggest speed bump around, hit it fast on their bicycles, and launch themselves into the air while screaming "yeeeeehaaaaw."
The “Dukes of Hazzard” series originally aired from 1979 through 1985. It is now on Country Music Television (CMT) and once again getting top ratings. “Each generation that comes along falls in love with it,” says Ben Jones (Cooter). “They never say 'The Dukes was a great show.’ They always say ‘The Dukes is a great show.'”
Tickets are $20 for Saturday and Sunday combined or $15 for a single day. Children 10 years and younger, seniors 65 and over, and U.S. service men and women with proper military ID get in for free.

Let me guess. Summer is only halfway through, and if you hear the kids play one more round of Mario Kart in the backseat, you're going to start snatching hair.
It's understandable. After a few weeks of pool trips and local hikes, you start running short on kid activities. Lucky for you (and your children's scalps) there's a fix. Just point the car toward Harpers Ferry and keep on driving. When you get there, you'll be thrilled to find that this historic town is full of kid-friendly activities. Since Harpers Ferry is both a functioning burg and a National Park, it has double the resources and double the fun.
I'd start by parking in the small lot by the old-fashioned train station. As soon as you step from your car, you'll be facing kid stop number one--Scoop's Ice Cream. This small cafe boasts every flavor from vanilla frozen yogurt to apple pie ice cream complete with homemade cones.

Once you have the kids good and sugared up, turn the bend and you're smack dab in the middle of Harpers Ferry National Park. There you'll find locals in period costume, ready to explain any question your kids can think up:
Where did you go to the bathroom when there wasn't plumbing?
Check.
How did ladies sit down in hoop skirts?
No problem.
Why would anyone enslave another person?
I'm sure you've been dreading this questions, but here you can let the interpreters handle it. They live for this stuff.
They also have great props like soldiers' tents and reproduction muskets, which blow the dust off history and bring it back to life. These materials are used in hands-on demonstrations with themes that vary from day to day. “It could be anything from getting in the river and looking for natural invertebrates," says the park's education specialist Amber Kraft, "To going up in our new period garden and learning about where food came from during the 1800s.”
Don't tell the kids, but working alongside the period-garbed interpreters is Renee Haines, a real school teacher. She teaches at Martinsburg High. With help from her students, she is happy to educate your little ones about the importance of watershed resources. There couldn't be a better location for this topic, because Harpers Ferry sits at the confluence of two great rivers--the Potomac and the Shenandoah.
If you have time before you leave home, you can show your youngins the town's quirky positioning--between the rivers and at the junction of three states. You can also take them to a webpage that was built just for them. Of the Student, For the Student, By the Student is a special section on the the National Park Service Website that was created by intrepid middle school students. They researched historic source documents, picked up video cameras and made a series of fun clips that introduce young and old alike to the town's fascinating history. My personal favorite includes a rap like no other:
[youtube]urt7JzT5tpg[/youtube]
Woop. Woop. That's right. Props to John Brown.
Not only does Harpers Ferry make history fun, it also boasts great hiking; rafting, tubing and kayaking; family-friendly restaurants, and ghost tours. The list goes on and on.
Think that's enough to get your kids to put down the DS? Have a favorite kid-friendly spot in Harpers Ferry? Post a comment below and let us know what you think.

I am pleased to introduce a first for The Revivalist--a guest post. It is from Bradley Milam, Program Director for Fairness West Virginia, the state’s leading lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) advocacy group. Bradley is a recent graduate of Yale University who committed his senior year to researching a remarkable set of untold stories from his home state of West Virginia.

*

[caption id="attachment_3915" align="alignright" width="158"] Bradley Milam, Program Director for Fairness West Virginia[/caption]
On a warm June evening in 1963 in the small coal town of Bluefield, West Virginia, Miss Helen Compton came across a group of young gay men. Just like the town’s other younger residents, the men had planned on relaxing downtown in an area pub, but they were denied access. Helen encountered them in a parking lot and heard that they had been refused service and blocked at the door because they were “queers.” Helen was “a woman like that,” which we would now term “gay” and a forty-year resident of the Bluefield area. She empathized, and there and then, she decided it was all too much. She promised to create a space that would make everyone welcome.
She opened the Shamrock bar within a year, and it wasn't until nearly forty years later that it closed. In between, generations of men and women “like that” came to know Miss Helen at her beloved Shamrock. A while back, she sat down with Carol Burch-Brown, a professor at Virginia Tech who was making a documentary entitled “It’s Reigning Queens in Appalachia” to recount her story. After reflecting on her life and its bumpy road, in her Appalachian accent and candor, Miss Helen professed that gays and lesbians “can’t do what other people does [sic].  We’ve never been able to.  We never will be able to.”
I uncovered the transcript of Miss Helen’s story at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC. For my senior essay at Yale, I was exploring the history of gay life in West Virginia. The project sprang from a U.S. gay and lesbian history lecture. While scanning the syllabus, I realized that part of the narrative was missing—rural LGBT history. To do my part in the field, I embarked on a project within my home state of West Virginia. Relying on oral histories, I began to recreate the social web of men and women who had come of age in the 1960s and 70s.
While interviewing people who had fallen victim to discrimination, harassment, and assault of many kinds, I was struck by some common themes. In spite of their pain, these LGBT elders shared a love of West Virginia, a commitment to their families and friends, and a conviction of deep-seated faith in God and the church.
All the while, I kept thinking of Miss Helen’s single acknowledgement of ostracism —we “can’t do what other people does.” A thin wall separated my personal experience and my academic life. Her words shattered it. I knew what she meant. Her words were mine.
A pastor condemned “homosexuals” from the pulpit as a 14-year-old me, terrified, held back tears. Classmates scowled at a 16-year-old me as he walked across the school cafeteria and sat at a table safe with friends to avoid their whispers. A father yelled at a 20-year-old me for having “chosen” an “unnatural perversion.” This was my life in West Virginia. I felt alone and afraid, and I’d worked hard to leave all of that behind me. Reading the stories of people who’d grown up in the same place a generation or two before me forced me to relive these memories, again and again.
While our generations differ, our pains and hopes have bound us together. At the end of my research, I grieved for them and for the younger me. Then I sighed with relief, realizing that I am not alone.
That sense of belonging was reinforced when I heard the stories of my peers. One told me of his mother’s decision to prevent him from picking up his niece and nephew for fear that his “contagious” abnormality would infect the children. Another needed help coming out to his father, who was certain to be disappointed. I wondered how history would treat them, treat us. I wondered if our families would come around; how long the battle for fairness would last; whether all of my peers know that they are among many who are waiting, who are fighting for acceptance and fairness.
Today, I am the first full-time staffer of Fairness West Virginia, a statewide civil rights advocacy organization dedicated to securing civil rights and fair treatment for LGBT West Virginians. Each day I collect more stories from lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender West Virginians. A gay teen in the northern panhandle doesn’t want to go to school because he’s afraid of getting hurt. A lesbian in the Greenbrier Valley was turned down for a job for no stated reason.
Armed with their experiences, I try to make history, and I always remember that those before us struggled and fought. Whether we know it or not, they passed us their torch. We are not alone, and we are not the first. We are many.
Sometimes I think of Miss Helen as I work, and I prove her wrong day by day. While our state’s LGBT residents are at times disadvantaged, we are hard workers; we find joy, happiness, and fulfillment, even in the face of hardship; we have escaped bullies; we are tough; we are West Virginians, and one day, in spite of Miss Helen’s understandable concern, we will be able to do what anyone else is able to do – and enjoy the protections that everyone else enjoys.

Thanks to everyone who took the recent Reader Survey. It's great to get to know you all a little better and hear your ideas for growing The Revivalist.
You may recall that a $35 gift card for Blue Ridge Mountain Sports was up for grabs. Those who completed the survey saw my strategy for selecting the winner -- printing all of the entrants' email addresses, pasting them side-by-side on a 3/4" plywood sheet and then standing 25 feet away, blindfolded, using a vintage pistol, and blind drunk, firing a single shot. If I could make out the address I hit, that person would get the gift card.
Sadly, we were out of booze, my city-sized yard isn't quite 25 feet long, and getting a gun license in DC is as hard as baptizing a cat. Instead, my pal Beasley and I selected one special survey participant from a glass.
[caption id="attachment_3893" align="alignnone" width="300"] Beasley moderates the selection process.[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_3894" align="alignnone" width="300"] Drawing from the cocktail glass of candidates.[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_3896" align="alignnone" width="300"] The name is drawn.[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_3898" align="alignnone" width="300"] We have a winner.[/caption]
Congratulations to Roger Elliott! He is a Kentucky native who now lives in Petaluma, California. Roger deserves extra accolades because he recently retired from the U.S. Coast Guard. Roger, thanks for your years of service and for making our waterways safer. Happy shopping at Blue Ridge Mountain Sports.

Once again, my history teachers have failed me. If you've been reading the blog for a while, you know that this has been a point of outrage in the past. I was never told about the notorious Smith lynching, which was witnessed by nearly a third of my hometown's population. They neglected to inform me about the battle of Blair Mountain, the largest armed insurrection since the Civil War. Now I find out that a top secret nuclear facility, right across the border in Tennessee, developed the plutonium that powered the bomb that the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Virginia public schools, could you miss any more opportunities to bring history to life?
This means that the entire trajectory of the 20th century--the world changing destruction in Japan, the rise of nuclear arms, the entire cold war--started in our neck of the woods, in a little town called Oak Ridge.
Beginning in October 1942, the United States Army Corps of Engineers began seizing land in Tennessee's Anderson County, an area about 25 miles West of Knoxville. Within five short months, the corps had removed all residents, raised protective fences, and began construction on Oak Ridge, a top secret town that appeared on no maps. Even local residents didn't realize that they lived next to a production facility for the Manhattan Project, the legendary effort to develop the world's first nuclear weapon.
Fissionable plutonium for bombs would prove to be the facilities greatest accomplishment, but weapons weren't the only products in development at Oak Ridge. With thousands of scientists on staff, the facility pursued a number of projects, including the creation of a nuclear powered airplane.
This was the exclusive focus of one Millicent G. Dillon. In a riveting essay published by the literary magazine The Believer, Dillon describes her experience in the Tennessee mountains. By the time she arrived in 1947, the nuclear bombs had already been dropped; the war was over; and the Red Scare was growing. She recounts how she lived in the secret city--dodging cockroaches and scrounging for toilet paper--and how she left following a political firestorm that could have been lifted from a Cold War thriller.

*

IN THE ATOMIC CITY: LIFE IN A SECRET NUCLEAR FACILITY AT THE DAWN OF THE ARMS RACE
BY MILLICENT G. DILLON
In January 1947, when I was twenty-one, I went to Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to work as a low-level physicist on a secret project, NEPA. I knew nothing about NEPA except that it was an acronym for Nuclear Energy for the Propulsion of Aircraft. As for Oak Ridge, I knew from accounts after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in August 1945, only that the project had produced fissionable material for the atom bomb.
I had accepted the Oak Ridge job after a single telephone call from an official at NEPA. My name had apparently been plucked from a roster of junior physicists who had worked on defense contracts during the war. My employment background was not a sterling one, as I had a history of rebelling against my supervisors. But the caller seemed to know no more about me than I knew about him, so I supposed he just needed to recruit bodies. I had run out of money, and my projected salary, two hundred dollars a month, sounded like untold prosperity to me. Uncertain and confused as I was about my future, perhaps I thought chance was showing me the way.
CONTINUE READING

Thanks to you, The Revivalist is growing by leaps and bounds. We're about to hit 2000 Facebook fans; our Web traffic has nearly quadrupled in the last six months; and amazing comments pop up daily.
I am smiling like a preacher on Sunday as I type this, and I'm wondering, "What can make The Revivalist even better--moonshine recipes? videos of singing bobcats? an annual 4-wheeler derby?"
Weigh in now by taking the quick-and-easy Reader Survey. Hurry and you'll be entered to win a $35 gift card from the good folks at Blue Ridge Mountain Sports.
The drawing closes at noon EDT, July 10, 2011.
And be sure to keep telling friends, family, casual acquaintances, and strangers on the street about The Revivalist. It's working. We're building an amazing Appalachian community right here in the wilds of cyberspace.

If you're like me and unable to make the remarkable March on Blair Mountain in West Virginia this week, don't worry. The Virtual March is on.

Each day, you can demonstrate your solidarity with the physical marchers and take real steps to help save Blair Mountain, the site of a massive uprising by as many as 15,000 coal workers in 1921 which is now threatened by mountaintop removal mining.

Here are the Virtual March actions so far:

Day 1: Call on President Obama to preserve Blair Mountain:Send a personal email to the president, asking for him to "stand up for environmental justice, workers’ rights, and the preservation of American history by designating Blair Mountain as a National Historic Landmark."

Day 2: Give $5 to keep the march safe:On the March's first night, Boone County officials told the marchers that they no longer had permission to camp in the park they'd identified and that if they didn't leave they'd all be arrested. Your $5 gift will provide a secure campsite for one marcher.

Day 3: Call the White House and ask President Obama to re-list Blair Mountain on the National Historic Register: Following an easy-to-use telephone script, you can maintain a steady drumbeat of support and ask the President to relist Blair Mountain on the National Historic Register, which will help protect it against mountain top removal mining.

On MarchOnBlairMountain.org, you can also find updates on the marchers throughout each day. It looks like tonight they're having more lodging woes:
"Wed 6/8/2011 2:40 pm  The march ended approximately 5 miles south of Madison. Marchers were shuttled to the backup sleeping spot, as the camping spot that they had planned on using cancelled last night. Marchers are tired after a walk in 102 degree heat, but are in high spirits. They walked 8.5 miles in total today."

These bold women and men may be in good spirits, but they're clearly having a hard time. They need your support. Consider joining the Virtual March today.

County deputies fire on miners from a Blair Mountain bluff in 1921.

You may remember that big coal is trying to blow apart Blair Mountain. This is the site of the largest armed insurrection in the United States since the Civil War. From the mountain's cliffs, as many as 15,000 coal miners took on corrupt coal operators; their hired militia; and, in the end, the United States Army. This was back in 1921, when workers had to wage literal warfare to secure a living wage.

Ninety years later, Arch Coal and Massey Energy Company hold rights to surface mine this historic site, but they face stiff opposition. Unions and environmentalists have partnered to stop them. This June, they will join mountain lovers from all over in a massive protest.

The event starts on June 4 in Marmet, West Virginia, where supporters will begin their march toward the mountain. Over the next six days, they will cover just over fifty miles, following the same route used by outraged miners in 1921. During the evenings, they will enjoy good food and music, cultural festivities, and workshops.

One June 11, additional supporters will join them. In the nearly deserted town of Blair, West Virginia, they will stage Appalachia Rising, a rally for Blair Mountain that honors our proud labor history and the irreplaceable landscape that defines us as Appalachians.

The event will feature a performance by Emmylou Harris followed by a hike--two and a half miles up to the summit of Blair Mountain. At the top, Robert Kennedy, Jr. will lead a rousing culmination to the event, calling for all of us to stand up for Blair Mountain.

This is one not to miss. You can register for the rally alone or, if you have the time and a good pair of walking shoes, for the six day march as well. If you go, be sure to share your feedback and photos here!

As you may have noticed, the site has a virus that is inserting ads for various prescription meds into the posts. I am currently working with a programmer to correct it. In the meantime, I'm so sorry for the inconvenience...unless you're looking for Cialis or Viagra, in which case, you came to exactly the right place!

All eyes are on Appalachia lately. Last week, we saw the premiere of COAL on Spike TV. Tonight, U.S. Senator and Scots-Irish historian Jim Webb brings us Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America on the Smithsonian Channel.

As you may know, Webb wrote a popular book with the same name. It was a spirited defense of the Scots-Irish, who are his people and ours. They were the dominate ethnic group in the Appalachian South. Their fierce pride, clan structure, and distrust of outsiders became our own, but before they defined our region, they were restless immigrants who, for several centuries, seemed as destined to migrate as they were to breathe.

Their story starts in the Scottish lowlands, where they battled the English over sovereignty and one another over food, horses, property, and clan grievances. Their world was full of strife--recurring wars, poverty and soil so thin that it could hardly be farmed. They responded with blunt persistence, fighting whatever came at them and, at times, marauding to survive.

When Ulster Plantation, a new colony in the north of Ireland, was opened they went in droves. It held the promise of land; Ulster was a sparsely populated region. It was also familiar terrain; in smaller numbers, Scots had been migrating there for centuries.

 

By the 1700s, many Scots-Irish had their fill. As much as one-third of Ireland's Protestant population resumed their Westward migration, this time across the Atlantic to the edge of the American colonies, the undeveloped backcountry of the Appalachian range.

Even here, they found conflict. This time, it was with the aristocracy that controlled America's lowlands. They admitted the Scots-Irish so long as the fiery newcomers stayed in the mountains. The Anglican elite found them rowdy and unruly but potentially useful at expanding the colonies' Western reach. They sent them into the ancient forests of Appalachia, where the Scots-Irish would have to do what they did best--fight.

Webb describes the Scots-Irish response:

"Their answer, then as now, was to tell the English Establishment to go straight to hell. A deal was a deal--they would fight the Indians, although many of them would also trade with them and even intermarry...America was a far larger place than Ireland, a land in which they could live as they wished and move as freely as they dared whether or not the established government liked what they were doing...so they made their own world in the mountains."

We know that world well. While there are nearly three hundred years between those first mountain settlers and us, we still see their influence. It appears in our language, our customs, but most conspicuously in our interactions with the world around us. I would say that we remain a clannish people, fiercely loyal to family, unimpressed with material wealth, quick tempered, suspect of the elite, strong fighters and religiously fervent.

These traits run deep in my family. Maybe they do in yours. How many passionate genealogists do you have? How many wildcat personalities? How many religious fundamentalists? How many members of the military? How many are suspicious of doctors, lawyers, the government--anyone who carries an official capacity? How many say a-goin, young'un,or might could,as in "he might could run the young'ins to the store; he's a-goin 'thar, anyways"?