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A Deep Southerner
Finds Solace in the Kentucky Mountains
(By Stacy Jones, August 6, 2005) |
These
are my people.
I wasn't born here, and the fiction
I write isn't set here, but I feel as though some of my roots
have taken hold in this place.
The place I'm talking about is
Hindman, Kentucky, in the East Kentucky mountains, where I'm
attending the 28th annual Appalachian Writers' Workshop this
week at Hindman Settlement School. Where I grew up-Southwest
Tennessee, Northeast Mississippi-is hilly in places, but those
poor little hills pale in comparison to these imposing mountains.
There are other decided distinctions
to mountain or Appalachian culture. I didn't know this until
I fell in love with and married an East Tennessean and ventured
towards Knoxville. I had a vision of a more homogenized South.
I didn't know much of anything about this culture. And I have
to say I'm still learning.
For my true South is the Deep South,
characterized by the standard fare and accoutrements: magnolia
blossoms, cotton fields, remnants of the Civil War (which diehards
still refer to on occasion as "The War of Northern Aggression"),
barbeque, fried catfish, and a range of soft drinks that are
all known simply as "Coke."
Drive to Knoxville, on to Eastern
Kentucky and even beyond, and you'll discover the Appalachian
South. Here it's not "Coke"; it's "pop."
And got a hankering for a good pulled pork sandwich? In these
parts, you'll be flat out of luck.
But if it's pinto beans and cornbread
you crave, then you've found the right place. Except here they
won't call them "pinto beans." They are "soupbeans."
As in the Deep South, though, they are most properly eaten when
accompanied by some type of greens and a dollop of pickle relish.
They also talk a little differently
up here than where I'm from. Not as differently as a Yankee and
a Southerner, but differently.
For instance, this week as I sat
in my fiction workshop, waiting for the session to begin, a woman
walked in, and my instructor, Silas House, who grew up in Lily,
Kentucky, greeted her.
"Come on in here, Murray,"
he said.
I started looking around to find
"Murray." I hadn't seen any man enter the classroom.
Then I realized Silas was talking to Mary Hodges. Later, I caught
up with Mary to tell her about my confusion. I relayed the story
of my late mother-in-law, who grew up near Selma, Alabama. She
had a friend named Mary, but she pronounced the "a"
like a long "a," as in MAY-REE. Now I knew of three
different pronunciations, depending on whether you were in Kentucky,
Tennessee, or Alabama.
Yet Silas and I speak the same
language most of the time. We both write. We love words. We are
lyrical. We enjoy music-especially that of the South, including
the Appalachian region, as well as the Deep South. We are our
people.
And, as I said, I am still learning.
At night, several of us sit on the porch-both an Appalachian
and Deep Southern tradition-and listen to music, sing, read poetry,
and mainly just talk so we can learn more about each other's
lives. We trade stories of our people. We discuss those who have
preceded us at this place, at the writing workshop.
One of them is the late James Still,
affectionately known as Mr. Still, who died in 2001, and was
buried on the campus of the settlement school. He helped found
the settlement school at Hindman. But, like me, he wasn't from
these parts. He spent his boyhood in North Alabama, not too far
from where I hail.
He took a job as a librarian and
settled here when he was a young man. He paid attention and learned
the rhythms of life, the language, the customs of the people.
He made them his people. He once said he didn't stay here for
the people but for the trees that abound in this lush mountain
region. However, it was the character of the people that shined
like a beacon, illuminating these mountains in his poetry and
his poetic, best-loved novel "River of Earth," in which
he explores the plight of a migrant family torn between farming
and coal-mining.
So I'm certainly not the first
person who has wandered here from further South and fallen in
love. I have Mr. Still in my company, and at Hindman Settlement
School that's pretty special.
These are my people.
(Stacy Jones, a Deep Southerner,
is basking in the serenity of the East Kentucky mountains this
week. She is a native of Guys, Tenn., and her columns, which
appear on Saturdays, are archived at Southern-Drawl.com.) |
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