I spent the first 20 years of my life in Appalachia. Although I moved away from eastern Kentucky 10 years ago, my two brothers still live there, and I try to return at least four times a year. Now I live in Lexington, where I am an associate in a prestigious law firm. But I still have a deep affection for the area I call home.
Somehow the beauty and charm of the area never seem to reach people beyond the mountains, and television images manage to make it all look so grim and depressing. A couple of years ago, CBS’s “48 Hours” broadcast a feature on the region, and a great part of it was filmed in a hollow called Muddy Gut, Ky., near my childhood home. The program contained all the stereotypes associated with Appalachia-poorly educated welfare recipients, tiny cabins in desolate landscapes (these thing are always filmed in the dead of winter), unpaved roads, poor health care, etc. Given such images, it’s no wonder that Appalachia is viewed with disdain by much of the nation. My own impressions are brighter.
The Appalachia I know is beautiful. Its tree-laden hills and serene valleys are perfectly matched to a slower pace of life. My fondest memories are of wandering in the hilly woods around my home, where cool breezes always blow on even the hottest days, and where trees blaze with spectacular hues of red and gold every autumn. Appalachia’s beauty never seems to make it out of the mountains and into the national media. Indeed, it is the mountains that have for so long secluded this area from the rest of the world. In an industrial age, it made little sense to industrialize here-the valleys are too narrow for large cities. And transporting manufactured goods around and over the many mountains is much too difficult and expensive.
On the south side of the hill that adjoins Muddy Gut is the cemetery where my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents lie. From that cemetery you can see my former home in Weeksbury-a hamlet of a few hundred souls. Like many Appalachian communities, Weeksbury was established as a coal town. Advancing technology and many other factors have steadily reduced, and continue to reduce, the number of coal miners needed in Appalachia. The result has been decades of unemployment, poverty, welfare and emigration. And this has caused an erosion of the remaining population’s spirit and ambition.
My family owned a store, and our home would have been considered typically middle class by most of America. We were considered rich, and the house-a brick ranch-was thought a mansion by many of my classmates. Lowered expectations and living standards are the norm for Appalachia; mediocrity is the best you can hope for.
Coasting through school, doing as little as I could to get my grades and showing no signs of being a genius, I was still made valedictorian. When I was a high-school junior, I attended my first “career day.” People from various professions visited the school, including a pharmacist, several military representatives, an attorney and a nurse. For a large number in the class, this was their first contact with someone in any profession other than coal mining. Making a choice at an eleventh-hour career day is no choice. By then, it is too late to get inspiration to study and learn disciplines necessary for college.
My senior class graduated some 65 students. Only three of us went on to college and earned degrees. 1, like my grandfather, great-uncle and a brother, became an attorney. The other two college graduates became teachers. Each of them had a parent who was a teacher. We three were privileged because we had role models long before attending a career day. To have positive working examples in a child’s early life is an important growing tool, and, sadly, they’re missing for a great many. Especially in this part of the world.
There could be a great opportunity to enhance the region’s economy while preserving its physical seclusion and improving the quality of life. Power and wealth these days are derived increasingly from technology and the transfer of knowledge. Immediate access to ever-changing information becomes ever more valuable. This leaves the poor of Appalachia even farther behind. That same technology, however, can hold the key to helping revitalize the area. A person living in Muddy Gut could receive and send information-with fax machines and computers, for instance-to and from the rest of the world as quickly as someone in New York City.
Change on a major scale can’t happen until Appalachians themselves embrace it. What’s needed is a renewed spirit of hope and purpose to believe that good things can happen, the incentive and inclination to make that difference, to see opportunities, particularly for the children. The education offered in much of Appalachia is dismal, and some make no effort to take advantage of even that. Lots of kids have no idea of the value and objective of basic learning as a means to a working life, so there’s no ambition to acquire more than rudimentary skills. Returning Appalachians who have ventured out and come back to live could share their discoveries with the young. Regular school visits from emigrant mountaineers as successful role models in a child’s early years can only encourage learning and give promise for the future. “If I can do it, you can do it” should be the message.
Through emigration, Appalachia has spread its seeds far and wide. Those lucky enough to have seen the world beyond the mountains should make a cultural pilgrimage to Appalachia and look around. Of course, providing examples alone will not cure the ills of poverty and inured apathy. But wars are won from cumulative effects-to instill in just a few an increased measure of confidence, a desire to succeed, is to keep alive the hope that, one day, the war on poverty will be won.
