Practicing The Appalachian Value Of Neighborliness And Hospitality

Over the last several days I have practiced and seen others of my neighbors practicing the core Appalachian Value of Neighborliness and Hospitality.  I have written about this key Appalachian Value on more than one occasion.  Just two days ago, I wrote a blog post about an eighty year old neighbor of mine whom I had never met until very recently who manifests this value on a daily basis and did so with my wife and I although we were not much more than strangers.  A little more than five years ago, I wrote about another occasion when relative strangers in an adjoining county had invited my wife and I into a family gathering and fed us a hot meal cooked on a wood stove in a former country store. I have had the pleasure of being invited into a relatively poor and shabby four room mountain home near Big Creek, West Virginia, where I was fed a fine meal of fried chicken, biscuits, and potatoes by people who were obviously at least as poor as I.  In a coal camp in Boone County West Virginia in the 1980's,  I was invited in, as a total stranger, to a family party being held for the final birthday of an eighty year old man who had been sent home from the hospital to spend his last days with family. I have spent several nights in the homes of practitioners of minority religion in Tennessee and North Carolina when I was researching that subject.

Roger D. Hicks and Loyal Jones Photo by Candice Hicks

I also wrote about Neighborliness and Hospitality in a response to a Loyal Jones manuscript in which he discussed that particular Appalachian Value by saying that "...we have become less trustful of strangers...our manners and customs have changed, so that we may only invite friends and neighbors we already know to meet for a meal."  He also mentions the increase of crime across the region as a factor in these changes.  Loyal Jones is absolutely correct in these statements.  The widespread drug epidemic and related crime wave across Appalachia has made us all afraid, to one degree or another, of anyone we don't know or who might appear to possibly be under the influence of any drug or alcohol.  Home invasions, robberies, burglaries, kidnappings, child murders, and all categories of violent crime are more common in the rural areas of Appalachia today than they were when "Appalachian Values" was first published forty years ago.  It is far worse than it was even 25 years ago when I was working as a door to door salesman in Southern West Virginia and South Eastern Kentucky. In the late 1980's when I was a salesman, I was regularly invited to eat meals in the homes of total strangers in the region. Two of my most precious memories involve such meals as I have cited above. I cannot imagine what it would be like to spend a day knocking on doors in those regions today, meeting total strangers in their homes, and attempting to gain entrance to those homes to conduct a sales presentation.  That would be a tough proposition today even if one was working on what are known as qualified leads, calls to people who want to see your product and know you are coming or to whom you have been referred by family or friends.

But I must take umbrage with at least part of that paragraph immediately above.  While the statements it contains are true, there are still daily practitioners of Neighborliness and Hospitality living all across Central and Southern Appalachia.  We may be harder to find sometimes.  We may be practicing those values with a more skeptical eye on the recipients of our largess but we are still providing food and rides to strangers at times.  We are still coming to the assistance of neighbors in need.  We are still donating to important charitable causes.  We are still practicing our kindnesses as our ancestors did even though we might not be quite so open about it in these broadly troubling times.

My own practice of these values came about in the last few days because I have some neighbors who are quite elderly and one of them is suffering from dementia while being cared for by a spouse who is 88 years old.  Another just lost their spouse at 90 after having cared for them for more than five years at an age when most people are either dead or in a nursing home.  The neighbor with dementia frequently falls and the spouse calls me to come and pick them up which I have done numerous times over the last year or so.  I also regularly check on the widowed neighbor because they have no children, still live alone, and seem to suffer from lack of social involvement other than a regular Sunday drive to church.  This person is remarkable in that they are living alone without any real concerns other than advanced age.  Their mental functioning is probably as good or better than mine with a 23 year age difference.  In fact they took a trip with a nephew more than thirty miles to another town to buy a new car just a few days ago.  I would also insist that there is nothing exceptional, unusual, or particularly exemplary in what I do for these neighbors.  It is the Appalachian way.  It is a core Appalachian Value.  It was totally commonplace in all of Central and Southern Appalachia just a couple of decades ago.  I sincerely hope that it becomes commonplace again.  Sadly, whether or not that happens may well depend on how we deal with the ongoing opioid epidemic.  I would say, in conclusion to all my readers, that we must work individually and collectively to reinforce, maintain, and preserve all these core values.  But most especially, we must work to be hospitable, neighborly, helpful, and caring about the people and the greater community around us.  It may well be what saves us all from a steady, inexorable deterioration in a community which is peopled by strangers who don't know each other, don't exhibit love for our country, and don't work to make the world a better place as our ancestors always did.   

"At Home In The Mountains Poems" by Ken Slone--Book Review

Slone, Ken, Illustrated by Tom J. Whitaker. At Home In The Mountains (Ashland, KY, Jesse Stuart Foundation, 2001)

Ken Slone was a professor of English for several years at Big Sandy Community and Technical College in Prestonsburg, Kentucky.  So far as I know he is retired.  I am unable to determine whether or not he is still teaching or even alive.  The website at the college does little to inform anyone about the faculty, their credentials, or biographical information.  The biographical statement in the book states that this is his third book of poetry but does not list others by name.  Ken Slone apparently grew up in Johnson County Kentucky and received a graduate degree from Xavier University.  

The illustrator, Tom J. Whitaker, was a professor of art at the same junior college for many years and has lived most, if not all, of his life in Magoffin County Kentucky.  He maintains the website linked here and is well known for his paintings and prints of nostalgic scenes from the mountains of Eastern Kentucky and Appalachia.  

While I enjoyed reading this book, I was not compelled to devour it as I often am with books I love. This poetry will never be considered "great".  Some of it is not much more than ordinary.  But it is highly readable and will elicit warm memories for the reader who has spent a lifetime in the mountains of Central and Southern Appalachia, especially in the Big Sandy River Valley.  I was motivated by the book to remember people, places, events, and incidents from my own life as an Appalachian native and writer.  I remembered corn shucking, milking the old cow, watching my Aunt Ida Hicks cook on a coal stove in the head of Bear Fork in Knott County Kentucky.  I remembered watching my father and mother perform the daily chores of life in the mountains.  I will not sell this book.  I will not give it away.  I will keep it and I might even pick it off the shelf and reread it some day.  As a writer in Appalachia, I know that sometimes that is all an author can expect from a reader.  If you have a desire to take a slow stroll back through your childhood as a native Appalachian this book can point the way for you.  You will find lines in it which will bring a smile to your craggy old face.  It will help you remember that old neighbor down the road who died alone in a rundown clapboard house by the side of a mountain creek.  That probably is all you ask from a book.   

Appalachian Christmas Hospitality

Dried Apple Stack Cake Photo by Roger D. Hicks

Yesterday, my wife Candice and I went to a neighbor's house whom we had just met a few weeks ago when some Mennonite friends of ours recommended her to do some sewing for Candice.  She is eighty years old, as of today, December 18, 2018, which is her birthday.  She still lives alone, works on some project nearly every day of her life, is deeply involved in the community, and seems to be able to do nearly anything.  Although she only lives about 12 miles from our house we had never met her and she actually was married to a distant cousin of mine for a few years.  But to get to the real point of the story, she had told Candice on the phone that she wanted to bake us a dried apple stack cake as a gift.  Candice has never eaten dried apple stack cake and immediately accepted.

Dandelion Honey Photo by Roger D. Hicks

When we got to the woman's house, I knocked on the door and she brought me into the kitchen where she had three freshly baked dried apple stack cakes on the kitchen table in identical plastic cake plates.  She handed me ours and we had a talk about how she does some gifts like this for people she knows every year.  She feels a commitment, which is an old Appalachian custom to give freely to others.  She also regularly still does presentations in the local schools about the old customs and folkways of Appalachia.  She also asked if Candice was in the van and followed me outside to talk a while.  During the course of the conversation, she talked about everything she cooks and cans which ranges from the commonplace to the more unusual and brought up what she calls "Dandelion Honey" which is not dandelion jelly or dandelion wine. Dandelion honey isn't honey made by bees, but rather it is really dandelion syrup made with the flowers and sugar. I have to admit that I haven't tried any of these treats yet but will do so today.  I have heard from someone else who knows this woman that her "Dandelion Honey" is wonderful and I will freely admit that it is beautiful to look at in the jar.  So is her "Elderberry Jelly" which I have had from other sources on many occasions in the past

Dandelion Honey, Dried Apple Stack Cake, and Elderberry Jelly Photo by Roger D. Hicks

But for me, the real point to this gift of three unique and wonderful food items is the fact that it is one of the oldest aspects of Appalachian Culture in practice, generosity.  On another occasion I have written on this blog about Appalachian generosity and hospitality.

Elderberry Jelly-- Photo by Roger D. Hicks

I have found that hospitality and generosity in every state in Central and Southern Appalachia over the last 65 years.  I have been invited into the homes of strangers for meals.  I have been assisted on the side of the road when I have had car trouble.  In my younger days, I was often picked up by kind strangers when I was hitchhiking.  But I will say openly that such hospitality is less and less frequent in Appalachia today.  We are becoming more like most of the rest of this country and less hospitable, less freely generous, less willing to lend a hand.  And that is a sad state of affairs!  But, Thank God, I found a wonderful example of that generosity and hospitality yesterday! 


****************************************************************************
UPDATE: September 25, 2019

The Jesse Stuart Foundation has just released a new book called "True Christmas Stories From The Heart Of Appalachia" and it includes my story, "Christmas On Beaver Creek", along with stories by Jesse Stuart, Cratis Williams, Bill Best, and my two good friends Edwina Pendarvis and Emily Steiner. It has 43 stories from 39 different authors. I have a few copies with my autograph and a personal inscription for whomever you choose which are available at the same price the publisher charges for unautographed copies.  They are $25.00 each plus $3.00 shipping which is what the publisher has set as the price.  I will accept payment through PayPal at rchicks@mrtc.com   You can contact me at Roger D. Hicks, 65, Highway 1081, West Liberty, KY 41472,606-743-2087, or e-mail at rchicks@mrtc.com  Merry Christmas!

"Fascism A Warning" by Madeleine Albright---Book Review

Albright, Madeleine with Bill Woodward. Fascism A Warning, (New York, NY, Harper Collins, 2018)

Madeleine Albright was US Secretary of State from 1997 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton.  She was born in 1937 in Smichov, Prague, Czech Republic and her family emigrated in the buildup to World War II, first to London and then to the United States.  She literally grew up in the shadow of the abject fear which Fascism generates.  There is no better person alive to write or speak on the subject of Fascism than Albright.  Just as James Clapper and John McCain produced their very important books with a co-writer, Albright worked with Bill Woodward to produce this book and five others.  I have not read the other books by Albright and  Woodward but I can assure you, based on this wonderful book, they are worth reading.  The relationship between Albright and Woodward has been nearly as lengthy and has produced nearly as many major works as the similar relationship between McCain and his co-writer Mark Salter.  Therefore, I am willing to accept that this work delivers exactly what Albright intended.  

Madeleine Albright photo by Smithsonian Magazine

Albright states that this book was a work in progress even before the electoral disaster of 2016 and it does not go to great lengths to discuss TRAITOR & Spawn Of Satan Trump.  To her credit, it is very deep in the book before Albright ever uses the word "president" to describe TRAITOR & Spawn Of Satan Trump.  It is a shame that she ever did use that word in reference to him.  But she makes absolutely clear that she has no respect for him, no faith in him, and significant fear of his still creating a disaster of world wide proportions.  But, Thank God, he is not remotely the focus of this book.  He just happens to be one of the guilty parties who made it necessary for a former US Secretary of State to write such a book and to join a former Director Of National Intelligence, a former FBI Director, a former US Presidential nominee, and dozens of other legitimate journalists, researchers, and 27 of the best, most respected, most experienced psychiatrists in America in stepping forward to address the danger the man presents. 

This book provides an excellent history of Fascism and a well reasoned prognosis for world affairs in the face of those Fascists and would be Fascists who are living today and working diligently to destroy the world or, at the very least, to reshape it in the image which they desire in their efforts to spread their Fascist dreams.  One of the most interesting statements in the book concerns the political origin of the phrase "drain the swamp" which has always been a rallying cry for the Tea Party Movement, TRAITOR & Spawn Of Satan Trump, and other Right Wing Radical operatives in America.  The first political use of the phrase was actually in Italian from Benito Mussolini, the father of modern Fascism.  The Italian verbiage for the phrase is "drenare la palude" which Mussolini began using as he rose to power in order to justify the firing of more than 35,000 Italian civil servants as he prepared Italy psychologically, morally, and politically to become the Fascist stronghold it was in World War II.  Now in the twenty-first century it has been joyfully adopted by nearly all Right Wing Repugnican Radicals in America and by Vladimir Putin's illegal occupant of the White House. A major portion of the US citizenry have blindly accepted it just as the Italian citizenry did in 1938.  

On page 5 of the book, as Albright lays the historical and political groundwork for the book and begins her initial education of her readers about Fascism and its dangers she says: 

"...why, this far into the twenty-first century, are we once again talking about Fascism?  One reason, frankly, is Donald Trump, If we think of Fascism as a wound from the past that had almost healed, putting Trump in the White House was like ripping off the bandage and picking at the scab." (Albright & Woodward, "Fascism A Warning" p.5)

That, dear reader, is a powerful metaphor and absolutely accurate.  We have seen a constitutionally guaranteed Free Press assaulted on a daily basis since this would be dictator jumped into the 2016 presidential race.  Recently the illegitimate occupier of the White House ordered that the press pass of CNN Correspondent Jim Acosta be taken because Acosta rightly and rightfully confronted him during one of his rare press conferences which appeared to have been held in an attempt to preempt fallout from further pending indictments from the Mueller investigation which are likely to come against numerous key members of the criminal conspiracy to seize the White House.  During the flurry of public statements about the incident which was wrongfully and illegally used to take the press pass, the White House actually released and attempted to defend a doctored video of the incident which precipitated that attack on Acosta, CNN, and the entirety of the US Free Press.  CNN chose to sue in federal court and Federal Judge Timothy J. Kelly issued a ruling ordering the White House to restore Acosta's press pass on a temporary basis pending a decision from US District Court on the full merits of the case.  The White House response to the court ruling was for TRAITOR & Spawn Of Satan Trump to say that "It's not a big deal. What they said, though, is that we have to create rules and regulations for conduct, etcetera. We're going to write them up. It's not a big deal. If he misbehaves, we'll throw him out or we'll stop the news conference."  That kind of action is outright and outrageous suppression of a constitutionally guaranteed free press.  That kind of action is unconscionable and unconstitutional.  That kind of action is Fascism in a nutshell. It is also one of the best reasons for any and all Americans to read this book by Madeleine Albright.  Additionally, on November 29, 2018, Michael Cohen returned to US District Court in New York to plead guilty to further federal charges.  In his new guilty plea, Cohen stated that "Individual #1, which the entire world understands to be TRAITOR & Spawn Of Satan Trump, was aware of ongoing contacts between Cohen and Russia about building a Trump Tower in Moscow up until about the date of the 2016 Repugnican Convention.  The plea deal also said that "Individual #1" was aware of the infamous meeting with the Kremlin connected Russian lawyer in Trump Tower. Also, on December 7, 2018, former Secretary of State Russ Tillerson has said in a speech that during his time in that office he was directed by TRAITOR & Spawn Of Satan Trump to do things that were illegal and that he, Tillerson, would refuse and declare the desired actions to be illegal. 

On page 95 in the book, Albright quotes President Harry S. Truman's address at the fledgling United Nations in San Francisco that "Fascism did not die with Mussolini.  Hitler is finished, but the seeds spread by his disordered mind have firm root in too many fanatical brains.  It is easier to remove tyrants and destroy concentration camps than to kill the ideas which give them birth."  (Albright & Woodward, "Fascism A Warning" p. 95.)  Harry S. Truman did not know and did not meet TRAITOR & Spawn Of Satan Trump so far as we know.  But that quotation tells me and should also tell you that he "knew" the man.  TRAITOR & Spawn of Satan Trump's brain was one of those to which President Truman was referring.  Today, along the US border with Mexico, concentration camps have been created for men, women, and children who are attempting to escape drug wars, murder, and starvation across Central and South America.  Children are being gassed and kidnapped from their parents and placed in tent cities without due process or any modicum of human decency which should be commonplace in a so-called "civilized country" such as ours.  Many of those children and their parents may never be reunited because ICE did not create or even bother to attempt to create a tracking system for the parents and children in order to facilitate their eventual reunions.  Whether or not those parents are being deported, they have a legal right to regain custody of their children.  Doing anything less than facilitating those reunions is a crime.  It is kidnapping!  It is Fascism in practice.

Returning to our direct discussion of Madeleine Albright's truly important work in this book, on page 184 in the book in a section primarily about the Fascist practises of Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Mihaly Orban, she extends into a discussion of the Fascist uses of the plebiscite to spread and validate a falsehood.  The plebiscite is used widely in America by Right Wing Radical Repugnican political consultants in the form of political "polls" which are composed of "questions" which are preceded by relatively long introductions phrased in such a way as to alter the "subjects" responses in favor of the candidate or position these "pollsters" are promoting.  They were quite commonly used by Right Wing Radical Repugnican candidates who favored the TRAITOR & Spawn Of Satan Trump during the 2016 and 2018 US elections.  A typical "question in such "polls" might be phrased in this manner: "Candidate A (the "pollsters" opposition candidate) believes that baby ducks should be decapitated via use of his teeth and mouth.  Candidate B (the "pollsters" supported candidate and employer) believes that baby ducks should be protected from all forms of physical violence." Then comes the "question" phrased to virtually guarantee a response in favor the  "pollsters" candidate.  "Does knowing this make you more or less likely to vote for Candidate B?"  When "polls" and their "questions" are phrased in such a manner, it allows the "pollsters" and their candidates to receive "results" they have directly and deliberately influenced and doctored to make it appear that their candidate is winning and to discourage support for the opposition candidate. These tactics in the use of so-called "plebiscites or polls" absolutely makes a mockery of what ethical researchers and pollsters call "validity", "reliability", and "generalizability", which are defined in this manner. Validity is defined as the extent to which a concept is accurately measured in a quantitative study. Reliability is defined as the accuracy of a research poll.  Generalizability can be defined as the extension of research findings and conclusions from a study conducted on a sample population to the population at large. The more ethical and honest, or shall we say the more Valid and Reliable a poll or plebiscite is, the more one can Generalize the results. Albright concludes her discussion of these tactics in this manner:

"...the misuse of plebiscites was perfected by the Third Reich, which employed it to attach a small thread of legality to Hitler's rule. 'The most effective form of persuasion', said Goebbels, "is when you are aware of being persuaded." (Albright and Woodward, p. 184-185.)

The use of these doctored, unethical, and deliberately manipulative "polls" is quite common among the Repugnican Party today.  It is a practice which was perfected by and arose from the work of Fascists.  No matter what your political persuasion is, you should always ask yourself when you are taking a political poll, "Are these questions intended to induce me to give a particular response or come to a specified conclusion?"  If the answer to that question is yes, you are taking an Invalid, Unreliable, and Ungeneralizable "poll" and you should not come to any conclusion it is intended to produce.  You should not provide the answers it is seeking.  You should not support the candidate paying for that poll.  You should not ever, at any later date, believe any "poll" being produced by that company or "pollster".  

 On page 211 in the book, Albright addresses the propensity of TRAITOR & Spawn Of Satan Trump to praise, cater to, and seek the approval of dictators world wide both living and dead. She discusses how he "often endorses actions by foreign leaders that weaken democratic institutions" and goes on to pick fights with, denigrate, and directly attack our allies while using his truncated phraseology by referring to those allies as "bad, very bad", or "sad, very sad".  That kind of phraseology is both the mark of a poorly educated and marginally intelligent person but also intended to seek the approval of others who are even less educated and more likely to approve of such actions which are damaging to the rights of the general public.  On the very next page of the book, page 212, Albright addresses how TRAITOR & Spawn Of Satan Trump has managed to spread his Fascist messages to the point that other similarly minded criminals take the actions which they believe he will approve such as Thai officials who kicked several American reporters out of the country and then responded to questions about that action by saying that "they perceived a clear message from Trump that "news broadcast by those media outlets doesn't reflect the truth" and that such media outlets "must respect the states power".  Later in the same chapter, on page 215, Albright states that "His analysis is filled with full-throated assertions that are riddled with bunkum and his arguments are designed to exploit insecurities and stir up resentment."  While those words are absolutely honest and accurate, they are also a major understatement of his willingness to lie deliberately and outrageously in order to get his way.   On page 218 Albright goes on to discuss his repeated attacks on NATO as too expensive and damaging to the interests of the United States by saying "Personally, I have conceived of NATO as a business proposition; it is something far more valuable.  The Alliance is a unique political and military arrangement that for more than seven decades has allowed Europe and the United States to prepare, train share intelligence, and fight against common dangers.  It is the cornerstone of world peace and a living testament to our collective will; you can't put a price on that."  But these attacks on NATO are parroted by TRAITOR & Spawn Of Satan Trump from similar attacks by Vladimir Putin.  A recent article from the news service VOX uses this opening sentence to discuss the source of the attacks: "Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to divide NATO. President Donald Trump is doing that for him."  Two pages later, Albright continues her argument by citing recent opinion poll figures from citizens of our allies concerning their level of trust for the leadership of America.

"Since early 2017, surveys show a marked decline in respect for the United States.   In Germany, belief that the American president can be counted on to do the right thing shrank from 86 percent under his predecessor to 11 percent under Trump.  In France, the fall was from 84 percent to 14; in Japan, 74 to 24; in South Korea 84 to 17." (Albright & Woodward, page 220.)

On the next page, 221, Albright speaks her own mind about her faith in the United States to recover from the ongoing damage  being generated by the TRAITOR who occupies the White House:

"I continue to believe that the United States banked enough international goodwill in the interval between George Washington and Barack Obama to recover from the present embarrassment-- but I am not sure how extensive or lasting the harm will be, hence the worries."  (Albright & Woodward, p. 221.)

 My own opinion, as expressed briefly above, is that the damage to America is and will continue to be cumulative, will last for at least a generation, and could well lead to deterioration in this country socially, politically, morally, and ethically which will be nearly impossible to erase unless the American justice system, as personified by the Mueller investigation, takes the necessary and appropriate actions and indicts, convicts, impeaches, and imprisons this TRAITOR and all of his co-conspirators.  In this country today, parents are raising a generation of children who have known no other occupant of the White House and have no other barometer by which to measure appropriate moral leadership until this conspiracy is brought to justice.  The price, over their lifetimes could be sufficient to totally destroy both America and American Democracy.  As she builds to her conclusion of the book, Albright states: 

"What the country needs is a plainspoken commitment by responsible leaders from both parties to address national needs together, accompanied by a general plan of action for doing so....Years from now, we may look back on Trump as a one time oddity who taught us a lesson we will not forget about the quirks of democracy.  We may also look back on his as the agent of a political fracturing from which it will take decades to recover, during which every president will fail because the only candidates elected are those who make promises impossible to keep." ( Albright & Woodward, pages 233-234.)

As she reaches her conclusions in the book, Albright comes to a bleak possibility and I concur with her in believing that the potential for such a disaster is very real.  But I also know that she, I, and hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of Americans are working daily to keep the disaster she foresees as being possible from ever happening.  But here is the conclusion she reaches and the reason we are fighting every day to prevent it:

"Trump is the first anti-democratic president in modern U. S. history...If transplanted to a country with fewer democratic safeguards, he would audition for dictator, because that is where his instincts lead.  This frightening fact has consequences.  The herd mentality is powerful in international affairs.  Leaders around the globe observe, learn from, and mimic one another.  They see where their peers are heading, what they can get away with, and how they can augment and perpetuate their power.  They walk in one another's footsteps, as Hitler did with Mussolini--and today the herd is moving in a Fascist direction."  (Albright & Woodward, p. 246.)

That bleak and terrorizing picture is what we all must, as Americans, fight against on a daily basis.  We must lot allow one criminal to destroy what several billion patriots have built over the last 250 years.  We must hold firm to the values on which this country was built and has prospered.  We must right the ship.  We must protect, defend, and perpetuate American Democracy as the Founding Fathers created it and we must not allow one TRAITOR and his co-conspirators to destroy it.