It has been almost exactly 2 years ago since I took this picture of a typical Appalachian holler one bitter cold winter morning and wrote these words in about 5 minutes while sitting in my car waiting for the windshield to unfog. I can still feel that moment like it was yesterday, I just glanced up the road and it spoke to me as if the mountains were alive. I still stand behind it as much today as ever – there’s nothing like a good ol’ Appalachian holler. This picture and words have been seen over a million times so I think a lot of people have a connection to these ol’ hollers. Anyways, feel free to share.

This is what we call a holler. This is a West Virginia holler to be more specific. You can usually tell you’re in a holler when you look around and see mountains in pretty much every direction; you’re on a road with no painted lines; and, a dead giveaway, when you see a dog standing right smack dab in the middle of the road staring at you like you’re about to play a game of chicken. A holler has a head and a mouth…it also has plenty of eyes because if you happen to be a stranger driving up or down the holler, someone has more than likely taken notice – an informal neighborhood watch, if you will. If you live in a holler then you probably know every Tom, Dick and Harry that lives in the holler with you and you’re probably kin to more than a few of them. You probably know everybody’s business whether you want to or not and they know yours. If you’ve ever driven up the wrong holler, there’s a 99% chance you had to use a stranger’s driveway to turn around. It doesn’t matter how many times the people that put up the road signs spell it h-o-l-l-o-w, it’s a holler – it only makes them look pretentious to spell it that way. You can live in a holler and still holler at someone but that’s a story for another day.