In Defense Of Appalachian Culture or Conversation With An Idiot!

Abut 25 years ago, I was working as a mental health therapist in a facility for juvenile males in one of the most classically Appalachian counties in Kentucky. That facility at the time had an idiot as its executive director. I had not been employed there very long, we didn't know a great deal about each other, and became involved in a lengthy conversation. The talk wound round and round as such conversations often do, and the fellow asked me something or other about the kinds of things I was interested in or in which I was involved. I said that I was very much involved in Appalachian Culture, Appalachian History, and Appalachian Literature. To my utter amazement, the man who had been raised in a Kentucky county which sits of the edge of Appalachia said "there is no such thing as Appalachian Culture". I was momentarily thunderstruck but managed to regain my mental equilibrium in time to make an honest attempt to inform him of the error of his ways. To this day, I still don't know if he was actually that stupid, and he was definitely stupid, or just attempting to antagonize me. He had been career Army which, I am certain, had not improved his intellectual capacities and skills. i began with a very brief history of Cenral and Southern Appalachia which is the area which constitutes what I refer to as Cultural Appalachia. That area of the entirety of West Virginia and parts of Eastern Kentucky, Western Virginia, East Tennessee, Western North Carolina, North Georgia, and much smaller portions of Western South Carolina and Northeastern Alabama are the area of the Appalachian Mountain Range which comprise the entirety of Cultural Appalachia. The vast majority of the area of the Appalachian Mountain Range is not remotely a part of Cultural Appalachia. Yes, there are areas outside that area which have been deeply affected by the large numbers of Appalachian people who have migrated into them, especially in the Midwest. But having been affected by a non-native culture does not make an area a part of the migrant culture. In the reverse of that premise, let's imagine that I, a Caucasian Appalachian male traveled to Watts in Los Angeles or Harlem in New York City. No one in their right mind would say that I had suddenly become African American or Hispanic. Even if I became a multitudinous polygamist with more than two dozen wives and a hundred children who were all raised in social isolation and steeped in my native culture, no one would say that I had managed to make Harlem or Watts into a part of Appalachia. Cultural Appropriation is not that pervasive. But let's move on to the rest of my discussion with the previous idiot in mind. In a momentary aside in addition to discussing a list of the various elements of Appalachian Culture, I also intend to intersperse throughout this blog post some photographs of some manifestations of that Appalachian Culture. The first of these elments to be so pictured below will be Food which is clearly recognized as a primary element in every clearly acknowledged culture. The photograph below is of a meal I cooked in my home a few months ago of guinea and some side dishes.

I'm certain that most of my readers will say something like "most native Appalachians do not eat guineas" which is true. But most native Appalachians, especially rural Appalachians do eat numerous game animals and some species of non-traditional farm animals which most other cultures in America do not eat such as squirrels, rabbits, grouse, doves, deer, elk, raccoons, ground hogs, etc. The side dishes I had with that guinea were hominay cassesrole and baked sweet potato. Almost nobody in "modern America" eats hominy in any form. But I once took a double batch of that same hominy casserole to a pot luck at a local yak farm and, so help me God, the casserole dish appeared to have been licked clean when I picked it up to leave after the event at which most of us at least sampled yak chili and yak meat loaf. Eating a wide variety of both plants and animals is a key part of Appalachian Culture.

Religion is one of the most commonly discussed elements of all cultures and a key element of Appalachian Culture. I took the photograph above of a little Holiness Church in Blaine, Lawrence County, Kentucky, a few years ago. The building is still standing, but I believe the little church is now defunct. But Appalachian Culture is replete with a widely divergent group of both denominations and non-denominational churches including the Old Regular Baptist, Primitive Baptist, Freewill Baptists, United Baptist, Southern Baptist, Holiness, Pentecostal, Serpent Handling both Jesus Only and Trinitarian, all of which are traditional churches in the region of Central and Southern Appalachia. And several of those including the Old Regular Baptist, Serpent Handling, and Primitive Baptist have been founded in the region by fairly recent emigres from England and the Anglican Church. Several of those denominations have been transported into the Midwest by Appalachian migrants aloong with their food ways and other cultural elements. Near Kendallville, Indiana, there is a church in the Northern New Salem Association of Old Regular Baptists which is named for my half sister, Flossie Hicks Wicker. It is called the Little Flossie Church of The Old Regular Baptists. Just 28 or so miles south of that church in Fort Wayne, Indiana, there have been at times at least three serpent handling churches which were also brought to Northern Indiana by Appalachian migrants. That is the obvious migration of a culture. I also have three or four generations of nieces and nephews who practice the self-sufficient ways of hunting, fishing, and foraging which their grandparents and great-grandparents took to the Northern Indiana area when they left Eastern Kentucky in the heart of Appalachia. I don't intend to discuss every commonly discussed and recognized element of most cultures in this blog post. That would be much more a design for a book. It is actually a book which deserves to be written. But I am not certain that I have the time to write that book. Maybe one of my readers who is a native of Central and Southern Appalachia can do that book in the near future. And, as I have implied in that previous sentence, I do not believe that it is possible for a non-native of any culture to appropriately address any culture of which they are not a native in a rational and fully accurate manner.

"A Song To Kill For" by Billy Edd Wheeler

"A Song To Kill For" is Billy Edd Wheeler's only novel. Wheeler is best known as a songwriter and playwright in addition to also having done some performing in the field of country music, having been a popular after dinner speaker for many years. This novel was self-published under the label Infinity Publishing which is virtually non-existent on the internet. They have been defunct since October 2023. I purchased this copy from Amazon and it was publication on demand. I'm not certain if Infinity which had been primarily a children's book publisher was an imprint of Amazon, or if it might have been owned by Wheeler and later sold to Amazon. While this is a self-published novel,Wheeler has a lenghty history as a playwright having written at least nine plays, several of which were produced for quite a few years as outdoor dramas around the southeastern US and Midwest. Wheeler also wrote several songs which were major hits as performed by others. Those songs include "Jackson" which was a signature duet for Johnny Cash and June Carter; "The Reverend Mister Black" which was a hit for the Kingston Trio;"Coward Of The County" which was a massive hit for Kenny Rogers; and, "Coal Tattoo" which has been recoreded by numerous artists with history in the Appalachian Coalfields including Kathy Mattea, The Kingston Trio, and Jim Croce. His well received plays include ""Hatfields and McCoys", "Young Abe Lincoln", and "Johnny Appleseed". It shouldn't surprise anyone to know that his greatest impact as a writer came in the area of playwriting since he held a masters degree in playwriting from Yale University in addition to his bachelors degree from Berea COllege. This book is worth reading even though it is not a great novel. It is funny, fairly well plotted, and has some well developed characters including the protagonist Gabriel Leatherwood who seems to, at least in part, to have been an alter ego of Wheeler himself. Leatherwood is a native West Virginian who is a musician and songwriter who traveld to Nashville only to have several of his early songs stolen by the lead villian who is the owner of music publishing company. Leatherwood decides to take on the company and its owner along with a sizeable cast of lesser villians who assist in his crimes including murder. Along the way, Leatherwood is lucky enough to fall in love with a beautiful female attorney, get invited to the White House to perform, and survive a rather graphic attempted murder by one of those villians. In the end, he marries the heroine, saves his songs, becomes rather wealthy, and chooses to return to Appalachian West Virginia with the woman of his dreams. I repeat, the book is worth reading especially if you are a musician of the country persuasion, an Appalachian, a writer,or if you enjoy crime stories and mysteries. It is not a great novel or a perfect novel. But it is worthy attempt at a first novel by a gifted writer in other areas of the arts.

Two Separate, But Connected Visits To Two State Capitols, West Virginia And Alabama

On two separate, but politically interconnected visits to the capitols of West Virginia and Alabama, I saw two things, one in each capitol, which showed me a great deal about the thought processes and actions of the political leaders in both states. What I saw in each capitol was connected to the sight I saw in the other in a way which was very educational for me and should have been so for anyone else who saw what I saw. The headline in this story from the Los Angeles Times tells succinctly what had happened in West Virginia. Former three term governor Arch Moore had been found guilty and sentenced of mail fraud, extortion, obstruction of justice and filing false income taxes during his 1984 and 1988 campaigns and during his third term, from 1985-89. On July 11, 1990, he was sentenced to a term of five years and ten months in prison and fined $170,000. He was ordered to serve his time in the Federal Correctional Instution in Petersburg, Virginia. I don't remember the exact date on which I subsequently made a visit to Charleston, West Virginia, and visited the West Virginia Cultural Center near the Capitol building which I have done nearly ever time I take a trip to Charleston. But I believe that visit was probably sometime late in 1990 not long after his sentencing. Arch Moore was depicted for several years in alarger than life marble bust which had sat since its original installation in the mezzanine level of the grand entrance to the Cultural Center. The bust sat against the rear wall of the mezzanine until some time after this visit, and I had seen it many times on other visits to the Capitol. As I climbed the stairs to the mezzanine and turned the corner to face the site of the bust, I saw a three sided box made of sheets of white painted plywood surrounding the area at the center of the rear wall where the bust had always been displayed. I thought "well, they removed his bust..but what have they put in its place". I walked over to the plywood box and saw that a thin crack had been left where two sheets of the plywood joined. I put my face close to that crack, and lo and behold there in the space which the plywood box surrounded was the bust still on scene after his incarceration. I laughed and walked away to finish my tour of the facility. Some months later, I returned to the Cultural Center and found that the bust was no longer there and neither was the plywood box. I have alway assumed that considering the size and weight of the huge bust, the management of the Cultural Center must have had the bust hidden until they could acquire a fork lift to lower it to the ground level of the grand entrance. The entire rear wall of the mezzanine has been used as a small art gallery ever since the removal. Google AI claims that the bust is still in the Cultural Center but I know better. I have never seen it since that sight of it hidden behind the plywood box.

In the late summer or early fall of 1993, my wife and I took a vacation to Montgomery, Alabama, where we toured three major historic sites: the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Alabama State Capitol, and the graves of Hank and Audrey Williams. Inside the Capitol, along a couple of walls was a portrait gallery of the governors of the state. This visit was shortly after former Governor Guy Hunt had been found guilty in April 1993 of misusing inaugural funds in a criminal case which bore some similarity to the Arch Moore case. Guy Hunt was sentenced by a Montgomery judge to five years of probation, 1,000 hours of community service, and ordered to pay a $211,000 fine. Naturally, he appealed his sentence. The eventual outcome of that appeals process will be discussed shortly. Hunt had been indicted on December 28, 1992, Hunt on 13 felony charges, and wound up having most of them eventually dropped. He was eventually convicted on one charge in which the prosecution claimed he had taken $200,000 out of his 1987 inaugural fund which all consisted of private or corporate political donations intended to be spent on the inaugural festivities. The charge claimed that he had stolen the money for his own personal use. When we visited the Capitol and walked along viewing the portraits of all the governors of Alabama, we came upon an empty spot on the wall between the portraits of his immediate predecessor and successor. The wall around this space was still visibly more stained by time than the rectangular area which had previously held Hunt's portrait. I have no idea where the portrait had been taken, and I have never been back in the Alabama Capitol since that single visit. The following section of Guy Hunt's biography on the internet based "Encyclopedia of Alabama" describes the ultimate actions which followed his initial conviction and sentencing:

In June 1997, Hunt won his first victory in the matter when the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles approved a pardon for him on grounds of innocence. For the pardon to be valid, however, it needed to be signed by a judge or district attorney, but no one willing could be found. Even the recently elected Republican attorney general, Bill Pryor, refused to sign the pardon, arguing that he did not believe his office held that right or power. Then in a stunning defeat, when Hunt requested that probation be terminated shortly before it was due to expire in 1998, circuit judge Sally Greenhaw extended it for five more years because Hunt had been able to pay only $4,200 of the fine and court costs assessed against him. On March 30, 1998, however, Hunt's probation was lifted when his attorney presented a check to the court for the entire balance. Sympathetic Alabamians, both Democrats and Republicans, had helped Hunt raise the needed funds. The next day, the Board of Pardons and Paroles again pardoned Hunt on grounds of innocence, and because probation had been terminated, no affirming signature was needed. The following day, Hunt qualified to run for the Republican nomination for governor.

I cannot fully decide just how similar and how different these two cases and their ultimate handling by the powers that be in West Virginia and Alabma are, but both have been forever imprinted in my memory, and both are forever connected in my mind. Two state governors from two politically (now) similar states were charged and convicted of political corruption in their states during their terms of office. The outcomes were somewhat different despite the convictions. You can make up your own minds whether either or both of these cases was/were handled appropriately. If there are political lessons to be learned from these two men and their criminal convictions, I sincerely hope all of us can figure out what those lessons are.

"Soupbean: An Anthology of Contemporary Appalachian Literature" by Bob Snyder, P. J. Laska, et. al.

After thirty or more years of periodic searches on used book websites, I finally located a copy of "Soupbean: An Anthology of Contemporary Appalachian Literature" by Bob Snyder, P. J. Laska, et. al, a group of Appalachian writers connected to The Soupbean Poets Collective of Antioch College/Appalachia. The book was published by Mountain Union Books of Beckley, WV, in 1977. Mountain Union Books was an imprint which was briefly operated by Antioch College Appalachia, which was a branch of Antioch College of Yellow Springs, Ohio. This branch campus was created by Antioch College in the early 1970's, initially opening in Huntington, WV, and after a couple of years relocated to Beckley. The branch was operated for roughly 8 years before being shuttered by the mother institution which had created a group of such campuses in California, Alaska, West Virginia, and one or two other locations. The campus in Beckley was never large with an annual enrollment which was generally less than 100 students. But Antioch Appalachia, which also operated briefly as The Southern Appalachian Circuit of Antioch College, was staffed by several of the best writers in all of Appalachian Studies including Robert "Bob" Snyder, P. J. Laska, Don West, Bill Blizzard, Rod Harless, and Yvonne Snyder Farley. The campus also produced several well known authors of Appalachian Literature most of whom are still writing and publishing today. During the brief life of the campus, four of its female students were featured in an issue of "MS Magazine" as "Women Writers of Appalachia". Those four women were Gail Amburgey; Pauletta Hansel who eventually became the first Poet Laureate of Cincinatti, Ohio; Peggy Dotson Hall, now deceased; and Sylvia Evans. I ahve to admit that I have never met either Evans or Hall and know little about any subsequent work they did. But I have known both Gail Amburgey and Pauletta Hansel for years and read a great deal of both women's work. Other published student writers who attended or graduated from Antioch included the late Joseph Barrett who has two published books as the product of his brief life; Bob Henry Baber, the eventual mayor of Richwood, West Virginia, and the author or editor of several books. I am proud to say that I was briefly a student at Antioch Appalachia but didn't complete a degree there. I have published fiction and nonfiction in a dozen states and one foreign country. My first collection of short stories is pending publication at this time in late June 2026. I always have and always will say that being exposed to the faculty and students at Antioch Appalachia and the high level of education they provided was the greatest influence on my writing. Antioch Appalachia was a wellspring of and for writers and writing in Central and Southern Appalachia. In addition to the Appaachian writers who were produced by the campus, two other students achieved success in divergent fields. Sam Farley, a Vietnam veteran and eventual social worker who in 2007 was in 2007 recognized by The National Association of Social Workers, West Virginia Chapter, with the Catalyst Award for Direct Social Work Practice. Barbara Placier Ervin, another graduate of Antioch Appalachia became a professor at Lander University in South Carolina and served as Director of Montessori Education at that institution where she earned the Mary Frances Poole Alston Award, which is presented to a faculty or staff member who has provided "visibility for Lander University throughout the state of South Carolina, the United States and the world" which was a recognition of her internationally recognized work in her field. By percentage of the student body, this group of highly successful individuals stand out very favorably in comparison to nearly any other college in the nation. The book being reviewed here contains writing from several members of that group including Pauletta Hansel, Gail Amburgey, Mary Joan Coleman, Bob Henry Baber, and Joseph Barrett. It also includes work by Bob Snyder, P.J. Laska, and Yvonne Snyder Farley who all served as faculty of Antioch Appalachia. This little book contains the powerful and sometimes biting poetry of Gail Amburgey who was a survivor of the Buffalo Creek Flood and one of two Antioch Appalachia products who went on to be among the early female coal miners in Appalachia. Gail's writing is frequently colored by her exposure to that flood which was a glaring example of everything that can go wrong when an American industry is underregulated and its actions go awry. It also contains contributions from Joseph Barrett who published poetry in numerous journals around the world before his untimely death at only 39. There is also some fine writing by former student David Chaffins who became a career Navy noncom. Jim Wayne Miller, who was a professor of German at Western Kentucky University and a well recognized writer of literature in Appalachia, also contributed to this book which must be considered a complement to the little college that could. This is a generally difficult little book to find for sale since it was issued in a small edition in 1977. But if you can locate a copy, buy it, read it, come to enjoy one of the most productive institutions to ever exist in Appalachia and Appalachian Literature. You won't be disappointed.!

"That Far Paradise" by Gene Markey

This is the second of Gene Markey's novels I have read lately and written about on this blog. The first was "Kentucky Pride" which I reviewed at this link. This novel, "That Far Paradise" is actually a prequel to "Kentucky Pride" with its protagonist being the grandfather of "Kentucky Pride"s protagonist, Aidan Kensal. The grandfather is named General Jared Kensal, a former revolutionary general who fought for American independence and is the first Kensal to settle in Kentucky on the land which becomes the setting for "Kentucky Pride". Jared Kensal is the holder of Revolutionary War land grants for several thousand acres of land near Lexington, Kentucky, and as the novel begins is preparing to relocate his family from his Virginia plantation,along with more than fifty slaves, to a fabulous home he has built on his Kentucky land. He has deeded the Virginia plantation to his brother Carter Kensal who is a heavy drinker and man of little consequence. Jared Kensal is married and has five children with his wife Ardath who is from Old Virginia upper class stock, hates the idea of moving to Kentucky and is very far removed from any positive feelings she might have had about her husband in the early days of their marriage. The husband and wife have effectively divided their children between themselves in terms of loyalty and affection. Jared has close connections to his younger son Harry, middle daughter Lexie, and the youngest daughter who is only a young child and a minor character in the novel. Ardath has close ties to the oldest daughter and son, Elizabeth and Garland who is attempting to become a doctor. Ardath attempts persistently to control all five children and prevent them from being closely attached to their father. Like most generals in most armies, Jared Kensal is a man of his own mind and forces the family relocation to take place. As the move becomes imminent, Carter Kensal meets a British spy and his wife, Polly Blayden, who has nearly killed her husband and abandoned him in possession of a letter he has from his British commander which proves that he is a spy. I nlight of their lack of intimate relationships with their spouses, Jared Kensal and Polly Blayden are immediately attractedto each other. Polly asks to join Jared's wagon train so she can travel to Kentucky to visit her sister in Paris which was a tiny Central Kentucky village in 1794, the period in which the novel is set. Jared has put together a massive wagon train for his trip to Kentucky, comprised of his family, an old Kentucky woodsman friend, Ab Caiton, about 65 slaves of all ages, a small detachment of militia whose purpose is to provide security for the group. He has a plan for taking the train across a route which is rarely used through what is now West Virginia, down the Little Kanawha River to the Ohio, and down the Ohio to Maysville, where they will go overland to Lexington through the area where in real life Daniel Boone and a party of his were engaged in the Battle of Blue Licks. Although Boone is a minor character in the novel, Blue Licks is never mentioned. The trip is an incredibly arduous effort requiring the hiring of mule skinners and ox drovers to drag the many wagons across mountains, the buying of several flat boats to haul the party, livestock, and plunder down the Ohio. It is a trip which most observers in the novel see as a doomed venture. But Jared Kensal and his team manage the feat as he and Polly fall in love, engage in a torrid affair along the way, and ends with battles with warring Indians along the Ohio, a final battle with Blayden himself, the death of Ardath Kensal. Gene Markey was a devoted student of Kentucky history during his life as the husband of Lucille Wright Markey, the owner of famed Calumet Farm in Lexington. The book is well researched with a cast of purely fictional characters, and is well worth reading. It leaves a gap of several years between "Kentucky Pride" and "That Far Paradise". It is my belief that Gene Markey had intended to write a third novel to cover the gap between General Kensal's trip to Lexington and the Civil War and Reconstruction novel, "Kentucky Pride", which tells the story of his grandson who was a Confederate officer who returns to find his plantation in Lexington has been seized by the government due to his support of the Confederacy. I fully realize that many readers will dislike the novel because of the fact that General Kensal is a slaveholder and his Kentucky woodsman friend Ab Caiton hates Native Americans and scalps a few in the course of the novel. But it is my position that fiction which is labled as "historical fiction" has a serious responsibilty to accurately represent the times which it purports to describe. Any attempts to either ignore, rewrite, or misrepresent the history being portrayed is not historical fiction. It is simply fiction, inaccurate fiction, and not worthy of an intelligent reader's time.

Billy Edd Wheeler, Appalachian Polymath: Reflections On The Death Of A Great Appalachian

On September 16, 2024, Billy Edd Wheeler died at his home in North Carolina at the age of 91.  Depending on whom you ask, you could hear Wheeler described as a practitioner of various occupations and, before you ask, you should know that he was a master at several.  He was a song writer and performer, an author of nearly a dozen books, a college administrator, a humorist, and a playwright.  He was admired all across Appalachia as a shining example of what a great Appalachian should be and what all Appalachians should seek to become.  Several of his songs have embedded themselves deep in the psyche of the country.  His half dozen books of humor, co-authored with another great Appalachian, Loyal Jones, are found on the display shelves of book stores, variety stores, and general merchandise establishments.  Several of those humor books are likely to be reprinted for years to come.  He was also the author of several outdoor dramas in states as varied as his native West Virginia to Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky.  Wheeler was a man of man talents and he worked daily to utilize them all to the best of his prodigious ability.  In addition to those occupations from which he received most of his support, he was also a painter, wood worker, and sculptor whose works were actually good enough to be displayed in several galleries over the years.  

 

 

He was the  son of a mother who raised to be man enough at 16 to climb on a bus in his native West Virginia and travel to Swannanoa, North Carolina, to a residential school with only a single dollar in his pocket.  Over the years after that fateful trip to North Carolina, he served his country as a student pilot, was hired as Alumni Director at his alma mater Berea College, and completed graduate school in play writing at  Yale University.  His was truly a varied and prodigiously productive life.  

 

I never knew Billy Edd Wheeler but we have had three mutual friends including his coauthor of six books Loyal Jones, and Betty Lynn whom he hired as a secretary at Berea College and who also worked with Wheeler and Jones on the publication of their books.  My friend Betty Lynn had this to say about Billy Edd Wheeler: "I read the obit, but it didn't list BEW's first job out of BC. He was associated with the outdoor drama, "Wilderness Road" at Berea, and was the Alumni Director for a few years before going to Yale. He hired me in Jan.'59 to be the secretary/office mgr. in Alumni Office; and we completed the Alumni Memorial Bldg. in 196l under his leadership. I started being Assoc. Ed. of THE BEREA ALUMNUS, a publication for alumni, staff and the campus, under his leadership. I worked with him and Loyal Jones on the Traditional Music events, held annually on the campus and in the publication of their humor books. BEW wrote several outdoor dramas, one in Indiana about Abe Lincoln; one in West, KY at Murray (I went to both of those) and one in WVA about Hatfields/McCoys; and, maybe others? He put out several albums himself, I have most of them. He was very talented!"  

Another friend who had worked with Billy Edd Wheeler on an outdoor drama in North Carolina said, "he authored our sesquicentennial play in MacDowell County some years ago. 1993. " Voices In The Wind". My oldest daughter and I were both in the show. He was quite taken with her performance, at 9 years old!"   Billy Edd Wheeler was obviously a man who enjoyed watching children develop their talents and was willing to reward them for their achievements.  

I have not even mentioned the things I appreciate most about Billy Edd Wheeler and his amazing life.  I love his obvious zest for life and his ability to achieve success in many fields, his lifelong striving to produce high quality work, his outstanding example for other ambitious Appalachians, and his incredible song writing ability.  I consider three of his songs about the coal mining life to be among the ten or so best songs ever written about coal mining.  "Coal Tattoo" is an incredibly masterful work about the difficulty of being a coal miner and facing periodic layoffs and injuries from the profession.  He addressed the frequent loss of a job in coal mining in that song with these words: 

Travelin' down that coal town road,
Listen to those rubber tires whine;
Goodbye to Buckeye and White Sycamore,
I'm leavin' you behind.
I been a coal man all my life
Layin' down track in the hole,
Got a back like an ironwood bent by the wind
Blood veins blue as the coal.

Then he went on to address the frequent injuries in coal mining with one of the great metaphors in all of song writing, comparing a near death experience in the mines with a tattoo,  And yet, that same stanza ends with another reference to the typical coal miner's love of the job which has nearly killed him: 

 Somebody said "That's a strange tattoo
You have on the side of your head."
I said "That's a blue print left by the coal.
Just a little more and I'd be dead"
But I love the rumble and I love the dark
I love the cool of the slate.

Billy Edd Wheeler addressed the deaths and injuries in the coal mines once again in another of the best coal mining songs ever written, "Red Winged Blackbird".  

Oh, can't you see that pretty little bird
Singing with all his heart and soul
He's got a blood red spot on his wing
And all the rest of him is black as coal

Of all the colors I ever did see
Red and black are the ones I dread
For when a man spills blood on the coal
They carry him down from the coal mines dead

Fly away you red winged bird
Leave behind the miner's wife
She'll dream about you when you're gone
She'll dream about you all her life

Oh, can't you see that pretty little bird
Singing with all his heart and soul
He's got a blood red spot on his wing
And all the rest of him is black as coal

 Using the coloration of a beautiful bird, the red winged blackbird as a metaphor for the wounding, disabling, murdering  accidents inside a coal mine was a brilliant piece of writing.  "For when a man spills blood on the coal  They carry him down from the coal mines dead."   It is my personal opinion that Billy Edd Wheeler was the greatest writer of coal mining music who ever lived.  And he proved it once again the beautifully poignant song "The Coming Of The Roads" about a broken love affair and the death of a coal mining town.

Once I thanked God for our treasure
Now like rust it corrodes
And I can't help but blamin' your goin'
On the coming, the coming of the roads
No, I can't help but blamin' your goin'
On the coming, coming of the roads 

While I value the song writing of Billy Edd Wheeler most for his incredible contributions to the genre of coal mine music, I would be remiss if I didn't also mention that Wheeler also wrote a couple of other songs which were even more favorably regarded by the market place.  He was also the author of the songs "Coward Of The County" which was a Number 1 song for Kenny Rogers; "Jackson" which was often regarded as the signature song of Johnny Cash and June Carter; and the humorous "The Little Brown Shack Out Back" which Wheeler  himself took into the Top 10.  He is a member of the Nashville Song Writers Hall of Fame, the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame; and the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame.  That, my friends, is a career. 

 

"So Much To Be Angry About, Appalachian Movement Press and Radical DIY Publishing, 1969-1979" by Shaun Slifer--Comments On A Book

This book was published by West Virginia University Press in 2021, and I read it shortly after it was released since I had known the primary subject of the book, Tom Woodruff, who built and ran Appalachian Movement Press for its entire effective life before he left the publishing industry to become a union organizer for Local 1199 and to eventually rise to be its national leader.  About a week ago, I had posted a blog post about John Hennen's excellent book, "A Union For Appalachian Healthcare Workers, The Radical Roots and Hard Fights of Local 1199". That review of Hennen's book is available at the link above.Tom Woodruff, the primary subject of this book founded Appalachian Movement Press in 1969 and ran it in Huntington, West Virginia, where he had attended Marshall University.  During several years of the life of the press, Tom was also an adjunct professor at The Southern Appalachian Circuit of Antioch College, a branch campus of Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, which had been founded by Robert "Bob" Snyder. The Southern Appalachian Circuit of Antoch College was initially founded in Huntington, West Virginia, and after a short time, was moved to Beckley, West Virginia, for the remainder of its existence.  The press published a large number of excellent, small publications with political leanings to the political left by authors including Don West, Bob Snyder, P. J. Laska, Rod Harless, and Woodruff himself. Don West eventually bought the printing equipment of the press from Tom Woodruff and transported it to the Appalachian South Folklife Center in Pipestem, West Virginia, where he managed to use the equipment to produce a few pamphlets primarily of his own political oriented writings.  But the equipment was stored in the watery basement of a chapel at the Folklife Center and fell into disrepair due to the fact that West could not operate it himself and had no full time printer who knew the intricacies of operating and maintaining such equipment which Woodruff had actually bought used, and we might say "well used".  

 

In 2016, Shaun Slifer and  his wife paid a visit to the Folklife Center during which he discovered the press and a large amount of publications both from the time when Woodruff had operated it in Huntington and those few items which Don West has managed to publish after he bought the equipment.  Slifer salvaged as much of the publications as he could and wrote this book about the press and Woodruff.  He also implied in the book that there were other such Do It Yourself, radical leaning presses in the Appalachian Region at the time.  But the book contains little or no actual information about any of those other presses. It is fortunate that Slifer managed to stray into the press and publications, salvage as much as he could, and took the initiative to write the book.  It is, however, unfortunate that he did inadequate research and writing about the other implied presses of a similar nature.  That work remains for some other interested researcher and writer, if one ever appears on the scene.  I knew both Tom Woodruff and Don West, spent a period of time as a student at The Southern Appalachian Circuit of Antioch College, and lived for about a year at the Folklife Center. That entire series of experiences was one of the formative influences in my adult life as a writer and political activist.  I am grateful that as much was salvaged as has been of the publications.  They are a genuinely important piece of the history of the leftward leaning political actions which were taking place in West Virginia and Appalachia at that time.  There are some excellent photographs of some of the publications in the book which can serve as clues for any future researchers and writers who may take on the task of completing the job which Slifer began. I am proud to say that I own a few of the publications from that period. This book was a beginning but nowhere near the work which deserves to be produced about the Appalachian Movement Press, the Appalachian South Folklife Center during the time Don West was operating it himself, and of the Southern Appalachian Circuit of Antioch College at which Bob Snyder assembled one of the finest collections of Appalachian educators, political activists, and writers which has ever been in one location in the region for any significant period of time. That assemblage of people included both the faculty and several of the students who have gone on to produce effective works about, for, and in defense of Appalachia. All three organizations deserve to have their history(ies) fully and adequately told and preserved for the future in a single work which would address the interconnections and influences which existed between them.  Slifer's book did not even begin to scratch the surface of that collective history and the interconnections of the triumvirate.  Due to the fact that both West and Woodruff taught at the Southern Appalachian Circuit of Antioch College and several students at Antioch worked with either Woodruff or West and, in some cases, lived at the Folklife Center, this complete story needs to be adequately addressed by another better researcher and writer.  But Slifer's book is worth reading for the student of Appalachia and Appalachian History.  The image below is of a literary journal which was produced by the students and faculty of The Southern Appalachian Circuit of Antioch College and produced at Appalachian Movement Press. 

"A Union For Appalachian Healthcare Workers, The Radical Roots And Hard Fights Of Local 1199" by John Hennen

 

The advertising blurb on the back cover of this book states in part:

"The union of hospital workers referred to as the 1199 sits at the intersection of three of the most important topis in US history: organize labor, health care, and civil rights.   John Hennen's book explores the union's history in Appalachia, a region that is generally associated with extractive industries but has seen health care grow as a share of the overall economy."

John Hennen is professor emeritus of history at Morehead State University and this is his third published book.  He is a native West Virginian and was educated at Marshall University and West Virginia University.  This is his third book.  He is an excellent researcher and a damn fine writer.  This book is the history of one of the most unique unions in America, Local 1199, a union which defends the rights of healthcare workers in several states, most of which are in Central and Southern Appalachia.  But the union was actually chartered and did its first organizing work in New York City.  The book provides a scholarly account of the work of original organizer Leon Davis who was an immigrant from Belarus.  It also covers the work of Tom Woodruff, another native West Virginian who was educated at Marshall University, and explores the connection between Tom Woodruff and Don West, the founder of The Appalachian South Folklife Center in Pipestem, West Virginia, and co-founder of the Highlander Research and Education Center in New Market, Tennessee.  Woodruff and West both taught at the Southern Appalachian Circuit of Antioch College in Beckley, West Virginia, during a time when Woodruff was also running Appalachian Movement Press in Huntington, West Virginia, before Woodruff left those two positions to become an organizer for Local 1199 and began what is a storied career as a union organizer and eventual operating officer.  

The book chronicles organizing efforts by 1199 in West Virginia, Kentucky, and Southern Ohio in the 1970's which were both successful and hard fought.  The union and its organizers and members were resisted, red baited, and drug through the court systems of nearly every county they attempted to organize in.  Hospital administrators frequently hired strike breaking companies which were generally billed as "consultants" and which used every means possible including arrest, red baiting, and general harassment to attempt to break 1199.  The union did not win all its organizing effforts but, in the long run, it was more successful in organizing healthcare workers in Appalachia than anyone in the region ever imagined it could be.  Across several small communities and small  hospitals, they won key strikes, benefited from support among the communities which often had been strongholds of the United Mine Workers of America, and made union membership and its benefits a real part of life and the American Dream for workers who had generally been poorly paid, without benefits, and forced to live and work at the whim of hospital administrators many of whom proved to be just as mercenary as the local coal operators had been in earlier times when the United Mine Workers were attempting to organize coal miners in the early twentieth century.  

If you are a student of organized labor, the Appalachian Region, a healthcare worker anywhere in America, or simply a supporter of basic human rights, you should read this book.  It is a fine lesson in how determined organizers and union members can win against long odds.  This union, its officials, and members lived a proud portion of history in the Appalachian coal fields and their story deserves to be heard wherever workers have felt as Ma Joad did in "The Grapes of Wrath" when she said, 

"...it looked as though we was beat. Good and beat. Looked like we didn't have nobody in the whole wide world but enemies. Like nobody was friendly no more. Made me feel kinda bad and scared too, like we was lost and nobody cared... ."

 The organizers, national officials, and members of Local 1199 never gave up, never backed down, and never were willing to accept being in a world where it seemed the whole world was their enemy.  Read this book!  :Union, Yes! 

"Night Watch" by Jayne Anne Phillips--Notes On Reading A Pulitzer Prize Winner

 

I have for many years made a practice of reading prize winning books in fiction, nonfiction, and juvenile fiction.  I don't read every prize winner every year or even most of them in some years.  I chose to read this one because someone I know on social media recommended it, and it is a 2024 Winner of the Pulitzer Prize.  The brief description of the novel on the official website of the Pulitzers says this about the book: 

From one of our most accomplished novelists, a mesmerizing story about a mother and daughter seeking refuge in the chaotic aftermath of the Civil War—and a brilliant portrait of family endurance against all odds.  (Pulitzer Prizes website 2024) 

The novel is set primarily in West Virginia's Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum which was one of the earliest such mental institutions in America beginning shortly after the states of Maine and Kentucky built the first two such institutions.  The novel is set in the times shortly before, during, and after the Civil War, and is centered on three women in the mountains of West Virginia, and the Civil War sharpshooter who is the son, husband, and father of the three women respectively.  The sharpshooter has been seriously injured during the war and has no memory of who he is, his name, or personal history.  But he has become skilled in caring for the mentally ill while in a hospital in Alexandria, Virginia, and has been referred to the asylum as a night watchman and general aide to the doctor.  The man's mother is a root woman, an herb doctor, or healer. The man's wife and daughter, along with the older woman, are living high in the mountains of West Virginia while he is away in the war and are the victims of marauders from both sides of the conflict at times.  The antagonist in the novel is a Rebel sympathizer who is wandering the countryside alone preying on whomever he can find who is too weak to defend themselves against him.  He moves in with or on the young woman's mother, victimizes the two of them in every way possible and finally drops off the girl and her mother, who has become nonverbal as a result of his rape and abuse of her, at the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum and disappears before returning as an inmate of the institution.  The girl has been ordered to tell the asylum staff that the mother is not related to her, and she is simply a teenage orphan who has been caring for the woman.  The ruse works and the mother is admitted as a patient while her daughter is taken in as an unpaid aide for her mother.  

Eventually, the mother begins to talk and continues the lie their attacker has forced them to tell.  But she also becomes enamored of the doctor in charge of the institution and the feelings are mutual. Her daughter is eventually made a full time nurse, a position which did not require formal educational training or a degree in the 19th century.  When their attacker is brought to the asylum, he is in a violent rage and placed in a locked ward from which he eventually escapes.  The novel comes to a violent climax with the building on fire, the attacker returned to try to murder the women, and, in the meantime the night watchman's wife has recognized him and they have come to tell the doctor they are married and intend to leave to go back to the mountains.  The attacker climbs through the window of the doctor's office as that conversation has begun and attacks the group.  The sharpshooter is shot and killed just as he manages to throw the attacker out a third story window to his death.  All the loose ends are quickly tied up and the girl's mother marries the doctor, the grandmother takes the girl back to the mountains, and all is well that ends well.  

This is a good novel but not a great novel.  It does contain the bones of what could have been a great novel.  But after years of reading many winners of the Nobel, Pulitzer, and other literary prizes, for me the novel is a disappointment.  It is poorly organized, leaves far too many issues hanging at times, and could have been a far better book with a serious rewrite.  I realize when I say such things about a book which others rave about, I have set myself up for anything from a mild sneer of derision to outright claims of ignorance on my part.  The author has a fine resume both as a writer and a trainer of writers.  This is her sixth novel and twelfth book.  It is also the first of her books I have ever read and it is possible that I am not giving her enough credit.  But I really do believe that she, her agent, her editor, and the Pulitzer committee all accepted less than what could have become her best work and a worthy prize winner.  I'd love to have seen this book in a better form after another month or two of work from the author and her editor.  But you might also read it and rave. Don't take my distaste for the book as a total red flag.  If you like the sound of the plot, read it, and form your own opinion. 

"Storming Heaven" by Denise Giardina, Notes On Reading A Classic Appalachian Novel

 

 

I have often lamented in this blog that I frequently end up reading books far too late which I should have read long ago.  This is another of those instances.  I had known of Denise Giardina and her work not long after this novel was published in 1987 and had never read it.  In fact it is not even the first of her novels which I have read.  I had read her fine historical novel "Saints and Villains" a few years ago and, sadly, I have never written about it on this blog which I will try to do in the next few days.  But, in my opinion, this is the first Giardina novel anyone unfamiliar with her work should read.  Now, after having read three of her books, I don't consider this novel her best but it is the first of her novels about the struggles of coal miners along the Tug River and the border between Kentucky and West Virginia and it should be read before moving on to "The Unquiet Earth" which is the sequel to this novel and the book which I consider to be her best.  And, Yes, I will write about that one soon also.   

"Storming Heaven" is a fine novel about the coal field wars of the 1920's in West Virginia and Kentucky, and is based on actual events during those incredibly difficult times when many brave Appalachian men and women were fighting and dying in the effort to organize the Appalachian coalfields.  While it is based on that epic struggle, Giardina used her poetic license extensively in terms of place names, and rarely mentioned any historical figure by their actual names which I have to assume was at least in part a defensive action which she felt was necessary by the still extant willingness of the enemies of unionization to become overly and unnecessarily litigious in their defense of coal operators to treat their employees as being worth less than a mule since they had to buy mules and could always hire another man if their anti-labor practices killed or disabled another. 

This novel is written by a woman who is descended from some of the Italian immigrant workers who were imported to the coal fields during the early days of the coal industry in Appalachia and she knows her story well.  I would bet that she heard much of the content of this book at the feet of her older relatives on long winter nights in or near the coal camp towns in which they had worked.  Her consummate knowledge of her material is refreshing at a time when it is common for other writers to grab one or two reference books and produce a second rate novel about some aspect of life in America about which they know little other than the probability that a book about their current topic might sell a few thousand copies.  She knows the region.  She knows the dialect.  She knows the coal industry and its absentee owners.  She knows the pain, death, and diseases which have befallen coal miners and their families ever since the first underground mine was opened in some remote hollow of Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, or Tennessee.  This is a fine, honest, sometimes painful book and has easily taken its place beside other novels such as James Still's "River of Earth" and Davis Grubb's "The Barefoot Man".  And this book proudly joins Grubb's work in support and admiration of the men and women who fought and died to build a union work place in Appalachia.  

The book is written in a somewhat unique style with several different characters being utilized in alternate sections or chapters as the narrator.  It is first person writing in multiple voices and it works quite well.  Major characters include a pro-union mayor C. J. Marcum in Giardina's mythical town which is based on Matewan, West Vitginia.  There is native Appalachian union man Rondal Lloyd who devotes more of himself to the union effort than he does to the woman who loves him deeply.  That woman, nurse Carrie Bishop loves both Rondal Loyd and the mountains of the region.  She devotes her life's work to helping heal the sick, treat the wounded, love the starving children, and support the union miners and their families in any way she can. But  the one thing she cannot do is to maintain a consistent relationship with Rondal Lloyd.  He comes and goes, fights every day to win union recognition for miners somewhere in the coal fields and usually returns to Carrie when it convenient for him.  Many of the characters in the book are purely fictional but quite a few are clearly based on important figures of the union effort such as murdered Police Chief Sid Hatfield who died on a West Virginia court house steps because he supported the miners and fought by their sides in their effort.  The book ends at the Battle of Blair Mountain in the only instance in US history when the federal government used the army to fight American citizens.  

This is a fine novel by a writer who knew her subject matter as well as any child of a coal miner can.  It is an incredibly well worthwhile book to read.  Don't pass it up, especially if you live in the coal fields of America and need a little refresher course on how good men, women, and children died to build unions and fair labor practices in this country. 

"Field of Vision" by Kirk Judd--Reflections On Reading His Early Poetry

It is not uncommon for me to either stumble into or deliberately locate great books from earlier times which I should have read when they were new.  "Field of Vision" by Kirk Judd has now joined that ever growing list of such books.  This was published in 1986 by Judd which was considerably after he had published poetry in numerous magazines especially in the Appalachian arena.  The book contains about forty poems and about half of  them had been previously published in a variety of magazines.  I have previously written about Kirk Judd's most recent book of poetery "My People Was Music" which contains much of his later works and some of his earlier.  I liked that book a great deal and I have to say I like "Field of Vision" even more.  It is a widely varied collection of poems covering a plethora of areas of human existence.  In some ways, it is a book of poetry by a young, vibrant, man who still has been able to avoid quite of a few of life's disappointments.  But it also contains the poems "DOA (Sparky's Song)" and "The Death of Her Son" which are about some of those great disappointments even if the latter poem discusses the experience of another, a grieving mother.  "The Death of Her Son" contains the powerful lines: 

"She felt him rise to leave

and through her tears

she saw him

and loved him

and finally

let him go."

In an entirely different vein, "Visitin' Charleston" tells the story in well written lines about taking a trip to the city to throw a drunk and eat breakfast in the bus station "...with steam comin' off your shoulders and nobody wantin' to get within ten feet".  Only  young man who has thrown such a drunk can accurately and poetically describe one.  And, of course, as I have learned from reading two of Kirk Judd's books, he must write about the great outdoors and his love for it in poems such as "Morning High Meadow" which contains the beautiful lines "hanging dropping dew to webs and silver threads and grasses green and golden".  This is a complex book of great poetry which leaves no doubt that Kirk Judd is a complex man and was complex even in those formative years in which parts of this little jewel were written.  But if you feel that you need a further recommendation for the book, simply read the back cover blurb from Pulitzer Prize Winner Gwendolyn Brooks in which she describes Kirk Judd's poetry as "...delightfully amazing and rash and impudent..." What further recommendation could you need, if you can still find a copy of this 1986 publication as I did?  

 

Where Does Appalachia Lie Geographically?

 I have thought from time to time that I should add blog posts to this blog about as many of the counties in Appalachia as I can reasonably write in the limited time I have.  Whenever I think about Appalachia, I always think in terms of the area of Central and Southern Appalachia or, as I prefer to describe it, the portion of the area which is variously called Appalachia which can be clearly identified as being a repository of the Appalachian Culture, or what is commonly called Central and Southern Appalachia, and never do I think of the greater geographic area which includes all of the Appalachian Mountains.  I also never think of Appalachia in the geographic terms which the Appalachian Regional Commission uses to designate as Appalachia.  That last area, as arbitrarily designated by the Appalachian Regional Commission, is an artificially created political designation and many counties are included in it which are not remotely Appalachian in their dominant, and sometimes even in their minority cultures.  Often those counties have been designated by the Appalachian Regional Commission and members of congress purely to enable those people to pull together enough votes in congress to pass funding bills.  Congress members love nothing better than to find ways to gain blocks of federal money for the areas which they theoretically represent.  

In Kentucky where I was raised and have lived most of my life, there is a governmentally created and funded designation, with primary objectives which are economic, called Appalachia Proud.  This name allows designated farmers, crafters, and other local producers to sell their products with the label Appalachia Proud attached to them.  In September 2019, 17 counties were added to the Appalachia Proud region in Kentucky.  Those newly designated Appalachia Proud counties range from Fleming, Robertson, and Nicholas counties in Northeastern Kentucky to Edmonson County in Western Kentucky in an area which is really much more a portion of the Midwestern United States.  I admit that I have never done any in depth cultural analysis of Edmonson County but I have ridden a horse across the county in the time when I worked for the Vision Quest Wagon Trains as the Advance Scout for the program.  In that capacity, I dealt with local landowners, public officials, and business owners on a daily basis wherever the Wagon Trains traveled and I can assure you I never saw any evidence of Appalachian Culture in Edmonson County.  I generally say that, in my professional opinion as an Appalachian scholar and writer, that the area of Central and Southern Appalachia ends in its western boundary along a line roughly equivalent to the line of Interstate 65.  If I am asked to say which county I believe is the westernmost in Central and Southern Appalachia, I generally say that I believe it is Adair County, the county seat of which is Columbia, Kentucky, the home of my alma mater Lindsey Wilson College.  

I also generally dispute the frequently expressed idea that 32 counties in Southern Ohio are in Appalachia.  I cannot think of a more convincing geographic and cultural boundary than the Ohio River.  I sometimes tell proponents of the concept of Appalachian Ohio that they should go stand in the middle of the Ohio River and convince that little puddle that it is not a cultural and geographic boundary.  I freely admit that this response generally does not please those people.  But I also freely and wholeheartedly accept the notion that Cincinnati, Ohio, doe have a sizeable population of Appalachian people living there.  But they are all migrants from Central and Southern Appalachia.  I also believe wholeheartedly that the cultural area of Appalachia does not extend farther north and east than the general area of Western Maryland.  

Yes, I know some of my readers will not like what I have said here.  That's fine with me and it's not my problem. 

"Duets" by Edwina Pendarvis & Harry Geig--Poetry

 

This is a little, self-published, 24 page book of poetry by the Huntington, West Virginia poets Edwina "Eddy" Pendarvis and Harry Geig.  Eddy is a professor emeritus from Marshall University and her partner, the late Harry Geig, retired from the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers.  Eddy and I have been friends for several  years and, sadly, I never knew Harry.  Both were widely known, at least in Appalachian and West Virginia poetry circles for the quality of their writing.  While I would not clearly classify everything in this little book as love poems it is constructed and published with love and strong emotions based in a relationship which lasted literally to the day of Harry's death.  My one objection to the book, and one  I  have had with other multi-authored books of poetry is that the individual poems are not labeled as to specific author.  But this is a really nice little book of which I had known for several years but had never been able to locate a copy until recently.  The book was published under the company name Shoestring Publications, Lavalette, West Virginia, and was no doubt done in a very small press run of no more than a thousand copies based on how rarely it ever appears for sale on used book websites.  Since the only Shoestring Publications I can locate on the internet has a Maine land line number, I suspect this book was not done by that company and was, instead, a single effort with a private printer and the authors.  

As I said in my first few sentences, both Edwina Pendarvis and Harry Geig have been recognized as serious and high quality poets in Appalachia and West Virginia for quite a few years.  The book is filled to overflowing with high quality poetry and is remarkably consistent in tone and flow for a book with multiple authors. I have previously read works by both authors and each has always had a unique style in my opinion.  I believe I can sometimes discern which of the two wrote a particular poem but not always.  Harry's poetry tends to flow like scat music, street talk, and is usually about human interactions in an urban environment.  Eddy Pendarvis' poetry often has a more rural, less edgy quality to it.  But I won't bother you my guesses as to which author wrote which poems in the book.  Instead, let's talk about some of my favorite poems and lines in this little jewel.  

The poem "Come and See" opens and closes with some finely chosen words which clearly show the love with which they were written: 

When a long-dead comet    un-named

showered us with an after-image    of meteors 

I went with you   to a hilltop

to watch   you

.....

Whenever   wherever

eye-bright fireworks rise   and die

in a black

                      and purple night    it's you

it's you I want to see  

That opening and closing pair of stanzas is what a well-written love poem is all about.  

The poem "Soldier" is longer than most in the book and chronicles a sad, end of life story about a strong, effective soldier in his "shiny black Pony-ac Ventura...during the strike (but the assailants are still unidentified)".  These couple of lines paint a picture of a strong, effective man in a bad situation who is able to hold his own.  But because the poem is an end of life story, we come to the closing lines and find a seventy-two year old man who speaks out about about being robbed "...three kids callin' me pops..."  and he "...couldn't do nothin' about it...not a fuckin' thing."  That is a strong story about an old man, near death, complaining about his weakness and inability to defend himself.  

The next to last poem in the book, "Christmas or Anytime, Honey" is one of the real, heart string tugging love poems which make the book the little jewel it is: 

"But listen, If you were dying, I'd save you.  I'd stand

at the foot of the bed, challenge Death to his old game, and, 

lousy player that I am, 

I'd win anyway."  

That is just about as strongly poetic a statement of love as I have ever read.  

If you can locate a copy of this little jewel somewhere in a used book store, yard sale, online book seller, grab it up, read it, and enjoy it to your heart's content just as I have. 

"A Triumph Of The Spirit" by Lee Maynard--Book Review

 

Over the last few years on this blog, I have written extensively about the writing of Lee Maynard.  In fact, I have written about every book the man ever published except this one and one more, very minor book about life in the outdoors which was his first published book and is now nearly impossible to find at a price which can be afforded by anyone except the proverbial Philadelphia lawyer.  "A Triumph Of The Spirit" is likely to be Lee Maynard's last book since he died on June 16, 2017, at the age of eighty after producing a total of nine published books including that very small edition of the outdoor book.  This book was published posthumously by an entity  named Western Door Publishing which appears to be an entity which might be owned by Amazon Books.  The copy I own is a publication on demand type book which is, in my estimation, another short coming of the computer age.  The book was published posthumously.  It may or may not have been in the editing and publication process before Maynard died.  It might or might not have been published by his heirs and primarily edited by them and an editor at Western Door Publishing although actual editing work is a chimera in the publication on demand business.  Whatever the actual answers are, the book was not published by the University of West Virginia Press which had published six of his previous books.  This book is composed of   numerous sections of his previous books and several other previously unpublished short stories and memoir pieces.  But it is well worth reading despite the nature of the editing and publication process and the flaws which that process allowed to escape a higher quality editor.  

 Lee Maynard loved motorcycles, rode them all his life, and a great deal of his writing was a courtship with motorcycles.  He apparently loved to ride Triumph motorcycles, hence the title which is, of course, a double meaning which also addresses a life well lived and produced success in several areas for Maynard including his writing career, work as an administrator for the state of West Virginia, time as the CEO of a major outdoor experience company, and a brief stint as a university president.  The book loosely follows a timeline of Maynard's life and writing career with sections republished from all his major books including the well known and, at times, notorious "Crum Trilogy" which is comprised of "Crum", "Screaming With The Cannibals", and "The Scummers", all of which I have read and written about on this blog at the links provided.  Maynard also produced and I have previously read and reviewed "The Pale Light of Sunset Scattershots and Hallucinations in an Imagined Life".  He also wrote and I have read and appreciated but failed so far to write about a novel called "Cinco Becknell" which is set in New Mexico and is about a man in the homeless population with whom Maynard worked as the founder and board member of a food bank in the area.  I will attempt to correct my error in never writing about that book in the near future.  But, right now, let's discuss the work in question, "A Triumph Of The Spirit".  

 

While significant portions of the book are material which, to my knowledge, never previously saw the light of day, much of it is sections of Maynard's previous half dozen books.  Admittedly, most of those previously published sections contain some of his best known and appreciated work.  Several other short stories, and one story which can best be described as a novella, are also included in the book.  Whoever edited the book, appears to have made a conscious attempt to do some chronological ordering of the sections but that work is not absolute.  It does not fully provide a comprehensive timeline of either Lee Maynard's life or his published works.  But, it is still well worth reading, especially if you have already read any of his work and appreciated it.  Four of the stories in the book, including the novella I alluded to earlier, are good, high quality fiction.  It is impossible to know if Maynard had any intentions, as he wrote those stories, of either producing a complete book of short stories or, perhaps, publishing the novella as such or expanding it into a full length novel.  

There is one short anecdote about riding with a friend in Maine on motorcycles, being caught in bad weather, taking shelter in what they believed was an abandoned service station, and having the local sheriff called to remove them.  The story ends with the sheriff responding to the call, as the elderly female owner requested, and then transporting the two and their motorcycles on a trailer the sheriff brought along with an obvious preconceived plan to his jail where he fed them, gave them dry clothes, and housed them comfortably for the night in his warm, and apparently empty jail, all without any animosity and a good deal of hospitality.  The novella, titled "The Corn Princess" is set in a native American pueblo in New Mexico where the main character, based on Maynard himself as nearly all of his protagonists are, is an Anglo man who visits the village at times to spend time recuperating from the road and lusts after a beautiful young native woman who has a boyfriend of less than positive character.  This story deserves to have become  a full length novel and I honestly suspect that might have been Maynard's original intent if life and old age had not caught up with him before the job was done.  Another of the better new pieces in the book is called "Scorpion" and is a somewhat long short story about a male, Anglo motorcycle rider and a Hispanic woman whose beloved grandfather has been murdered by other, less decent motorcycle riders.  This story contains some of Maynard's best writing about the sexual attraction, sex, human interaction, and the potential cruelty of human nature.  It also could have easily been expanded into a better than average novel.  

My final conclusions about this book are these: 1) it is a shame that it is not more cohesive and chronological; 2) it is a shame that Maynard did not live to fully oversee the publication process; 3) it is a shame that Lee Maynard never published an actual collection of short stories; 4) it is a shame that Lee Maynard did not live to expand at least two of these stories into novels; and 5) I will always miss knowing that another good Lee Maynard novel is about to come hot off the press.  

But, for the average reader, especially one who loves motorcycles and riding, this is a book worth the time and expense of reading.