I stopped at a convenience store to relieve myself of some excess Diet Coke in the restroom. I was in a rush to get back on the road so when I started to leave, I picked up the pace of my walking.

I headed around the edge of a rack filled with candy bars and other goodies still hot-stepping it. I didn’t notice until it was too late that I was cutting off a very frail-appearing elderly man who was walking at a very slow pace while stooped over with his back bent. His neck has what appeared to be fresh stitches and scars that seemed to indicate he’d recently had a medical procedure performed on him. He reminded me of the old-timey coal miners that walked with a similar stoop from duck-walking in the mines.

I felt pretty rotten about how I’d almost caused a collision with him from my selfish actions. I decided to try to do some small something to atone for my rudeness. I stood holding the door for him to come out behind me and he slowly ambled his way out of the store.

He slowly craned his neck to look at me and said, “Thank you, friend, what do I owe you?” I said “Not one thing in this world.” Not accepting that, he replied, “How about if I give you a warm smile?” To which I said, “I’ll sure take it, those are hard to come by these days.” He then went on to say, “There would be a lot more of them if folks got right with God.” I agreed and said, “Amen, ain’t that the truth.” He seemed pleased to know that I held the same belief as him regarding a belief in a higher power. He parted ways with me by adding, “I probably won’t see you again down here, but I’ll holler at you when we I see you up yonder.” I smiled and said, “That sounds great, I look forward to it.”

We waved a goodbye and hopped in our cars headed out in different directions in life. I know he was probably right about us not seeing each other again, but I’m gonna hold him to his word about hollering at me when the roll is called up yonder. Some random brief encounters in this ol’ life give you the best blessings.

I have no idea what his name is or where he is from, but none of that matters because I know where he is headed and the next time I see him, we’ll both have brand new bodies free from the wear and tear of this world.

I am (and rightly should be) embarrassed to admit that I quit reading for well over ten years. Yet, I have written three books during that time, quite odd, but I am a strange person. My first book even won the Award of Excellence given out by the East Tennessee Historical Society, so I must have a modicum of talent for it.

Why and how did I decide to quit reading? The same excuses everyone else uses: no free time, slow reader, poor attention span, etc. All legitimate issues to be sure, but none that cannot be overcome. I was so warped that I almost bragged about it as if it were something to be proud of. I hate to write those words to even admit it, but I am on a quest to be authentic, for better and worse.

Fortunately, at some point earlier this year, I had an awakening. I challenged every way in which I described myself. Where I once would say “I am not a reader,” I instead asked, “Why am I not a reader?” After pondering this question, I realized it all comes down to a lack of self-discipline. That is not a happy realization to have, but the truth tends to bruise your ego.

I made a commitment that I would work toward becoming a reader. I would sit down and plow through a book, no matter how slow I read or how long it took to finish. I knew I had to choose a subject that would interest me. I decided to go with the book Based on a True Story: Not a Memoir. I love humor and he was my favorite comedian, so I deduced that if I would read anything in this world without quitting, it would be his book.

I started in and read the first chapter. I was proud of myself for taking that first step. The next night I read another. On the third night, I read two more chapters. I started to see I was deep into the book. I kept rolling until I got close to the end. I began to feel a little sad when it came to the last few pages. It felt like it was my last conversation with a close friend. Experiencing the finality of the book was something I had never felt before.

Reading someone’s writing brings you into their world. I notice even from my experience that all writing has an element of the writer poured into it. It is a very personal thing to write and allow others to read.

For some godforsaken reason, I chose “The Sound and the Fury” by William Faulkner to read next. It felt like whiplash in going from light comedic reading straight into the stream-of-consciousness style of Faulkner. That book was a mountain to climb for me and my rusty reading skills. I had so much trouble processing it that I had to do a Google search. It wasn’t surprising to discover it ranked as the #2 most difficult book to read. Shew, lawdy, I am still not sure how I managed it, but I am glad I did. I celebrated the final few pages of that beast.

I went from that book back to the breezy comedian autobiography genre to decompress my mind. I grabbed the autobiography of Hee Haw star Archie Campbell. I noticed my reading skills had sharpened so much that I could read all 160 pages in three sittings. Again, I felt the same mournful feeling as I got close to the end. There’s something about knowing that you have just about fully uncovered the life story of someone you admire that makes it bittersweet.

I am now working on Chili Dawgs Always Bark at Night by Lewis Grizzard before attempting to tackle heavier fare. I apparently have a weakness for deceased comedians.

I now officially consider myself a reader and am proud of it. If you read this, thank you. It is an honor and a privilege to know people take precious time away from their lives that could be spent on a million other things to read my work. I think reading will make me a better writer. Having read Faulkner, I see I bring the equivalent of a tricycle to a motorcycle race. I will keep pedaling along, though.

I love these old mountains as much as anyone I know, but that love gets tested from time to time. This past weekend was one such occasion.

My 19-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter decided it would be a good idea to go to the Carowinds theme park in Charlotte yesterday. It was to be a fun-filled last hurrah of summer before he goes off to college and she begins school for the first time. Nothing would stop us from having fun…or so we thought. On the bright side, we ended up having fun at the park despite the blistering heat and getting separated from each other for almost two hours.

We left the park a shade before 8 pm, hoping to get home by around 11ish. A reasonable goal that would not put a strain on bedtimes. It was at this point the chaos began. We had entered that dimension known as The Twilight Zone.

My son’s love for Chipotle passes all human understanding, so we pulled into their location in Gastonia. It all went well for him. My daughter and I aren’t nearly as passionate about Chipotle, so we opted to go to Chick-fil-A instead. This is about the time when the wheels came off on our journey home. Fortunately, I don’t mean that literally, but wheels coming off was about the only thing we didn’t experience. 

Chick-fil-A was closed. As painful as that was on its face, the hurt doubled when I saw they closed at 9:00 pm and that we’d gotten there at 9:03 pm. In the words of Maxwell Smart from the old Get Smart tv show, “missed it by THAT much.” Adding insult to injury, my bright 5-year-old had a question that I didn’t have a good answer for, “Daddy, why is Chuck E. Cheese still open and Chick-fil-A not?” That was a checkmate. I had no good answer.

We scrambled around, looking for another food option, and finally settled on Taco Bell. All goes well save for the fact now we are so twisted and deep into Gastonia that GPS routes us a different way home. I hadn’t picked up on the change until we were deep into the drive back.

We drove up through Hickory, Lenoir, Granite Falls, Boone, and on into Mountain City, Tennessee. I am wilting with fatigue by this time, but the end of the drive is in sight, or so I thought. 

Once we’d gotten back to Lenoir, I’d handed my phone over to my daughter to keep her entertained, as she wasn’t enjoying this drive home and wasn’t shy about expressing her dissatisfaction. I know, I know, I know that handing electronics over to a child is a cardinal sin these days, but you’d be surprised at how quickly you will make a deal with the Devil to get some peace in a stressful situation.

Just as we passed through Mountain City, the cell service goes kaput. My daughter was not a happy camper at having her Roblox game messed up. She hands me the phone in disgust and soon she starts up with the “Are we almost home?” questions again.

We pass through Laurel Bloomery and are about to hit Damascus when disaster strikes. A tree had fallen perfectly across the road, blocking the route and making it impassable–at least for the low-to-the-ground Toyota Corolla I happen to sport. The tree was too big and heavy to move, so we had to inch our way back on the curvy road to find a spot where we could turn around.

We start heading in the opposite direction as it is closing in on 1 am. Of course, as we all know, technology is a wonderful thing when it works, but it tends to not work when you need it the most. 

The cell service being out, I couldn’t get the GPS to work, so we worked our way back to Laurel Bloomery where we finally got one bar of service. The GPS tells me to drive another mile and then turn onto Johnson Holler Road (of course, it was spelled “hollow” but I refuse to give that word credence).

We get on Johnson Holler Road and the fog is so thick you could cut it with a knife. It was like an old episode of Scooby Doo, where Scooby and Shaggy get out a knife and cut the thick fog into donuts. Oh yeah, it was curvy and tight too. 

So, by this time, I have compounded fatigue, poor visibility, and sharp curves. I got down to about 5 mph. The road finally turns into something that looks a little more heavily traveled.

We get a little down the road before I hear my son say in a tone that sounded like he was breaking the news of someone’s impending death, “That is the convenience store we passed just before we got stuck.” Ugh, we had gone in a circle and taken almost 30 more minutes to do it. I was about to have a meltdown. I was out of ideas. I decided to turn down the side road beside the convenience store and keep driving in that direction, hoping and praying it would lead somewhere.

I got a couple of miles into it that way when my cell service kicked back in. It said to make a right at Liberty Church Road and then turn onto Rt. 421. I was excited because after the last fiasco I’d burned rt. 91 into my brain as being the one to avoid.

We go for about half a mile along 421 when I notice it has more shocking twists and turns than an M. Night Shyamalan movie. I started to get suspicious. I thought, “Oh no, it can’t be…it just can’t be…it has to be…the dreaded road known as The Snake.” Oh yes, it was The Snake, all 489 curves, three mountains, and one valley of it.

Friends, let me tell ya, there are fewer driving experiences you want to have than to drive around 8 hours round trip, spend hours in the blistering heat of a theme park, then head across The Snake. Once my son confirmed to me that we were on The Snake, I just laughed. What else could I do? Whether it was insanity creeping in or just knowing it would be an experience I’d remember for the rest of my life (probably some of both), I finally found it funny.

We crossed The Snake, then drove past Backbone Rock, normally one of my favorite destinations, but I could not have cared less about it last night. We ended up in Damascus, so we were getting somewhere. Oh but no, our fun wasn’t over. The road from Damascus to Abingdon was closed. It looks like they have obliterated that road. I have no idea what the end goal or logic is, and it didn’t matter at 1:30 am.

We sat for almost 20 minutes until a pilot truck came and led us through the detour. It was our final bit of misery before finally getting home.

We pulled into the garage and wearily packed up our stuff. My daughter wakes up and says, “These mountains are hateful. I don’t like them.” On this night I agreed with her. 

These old mountains are like an elderly relative that has led a long hard life. You love them and you respect them, but sometimes they can be hateful.

One of the all-time great mysteries in Appalachian history comes from the little town of Fayetteville, WV. The story of the Sodder family has drawn a massive amount of scrutiny, yet has bamboozled investigators and researchers for almost 80 years now. What began as a simple Christmas holiday became a never-ending nightmare for a family of Italian immigrants.

George and Jennie Sodder, along with nine of their children (only a son in the military was absent), went to bed on Christmas Eve, 1944. 

At approximately 1 a.m. on Christmas morning, Jennie Sodder awoke to find their house had caught on fire. Jennie frantically roused her husband. Together, they attempted to round up their children to get to safety. 

George, Jennie, and four of their children made it out. George charged back into the house to save the other five missing children when he couldn’t find them outside.

George entered the house and encountered a cloud of flames and smoke. Knowing the children were likely upstairs, George went outside to where he kept a ladder, but it was missing. He then thought to use one of his two coal trucks to back them up the upstairs window, but neither would start despite firing up the day before. 

He tried to get water from a rain barrel to throw on the fire, but found it frozen.

A billowing cloud of smoke engulfed the house with, presumably, the missing Sodder children inside. The Sodder’s oldest daughter ran to a neighbor’s house to call the fire department, but there was no operator. Another neighbor who saw the flames also tried to dial the fire department, but to no avail. 

Despite the fire station being only 2 1/2 miles away, it was 8 a.m. on Christmas Day before the fire truck made it to the Sodder’s home some 7 hours after the fire began.

.

George and Jeannie Sodder were despondent, thinking five of their children had perished in the fire. The Fire Chief said the fire wasn’t hot enough to incinerate the children, yet they couldn’t find any remains.. They deemed the cause of the fire to be faulty electrical wiring. The local authorities looked to close the books on the case quickly, as it appeared to have just been a tragic accident.

After the initial shock passed, the Sodders doubted their children had died in the fire. They began piecing together all the loose ends that had occurred before the fire. A series of odd events had preceded the fire that the Sodders questioned:

• A few months before the fire, a stranger had come to their home looking for work as a coal hauler for the Sodder’s trucking company. Looking at their fuse box, he remarked, “This is going to cause a fire someday.” It struck the Sodders as odd because their system had just satisfactorily passed an inspection by the power company.
• During that same time frame, an insurance agent had attempted to persuade them to buy life insurance. After they declined, the agent became angry. He declared that their house “is going to go up in smoke” and “your children are going to be destroyed” due to George Sodder’s outspoken criticism of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Fayetteville had a strong Italian community at the time and George Sodder’s harsh comments hadn’t made him popular in the neighborhood.
• Just a few days before the fire, the older Sodder boys had spotted a strange man sitting in a car watching the children come home after school.
• An odd phone call had come through just after midnight, shortly before the fire broke out. It turned out to be a wrong number as a female voice asked to speak with someone Jennie had never heard of. Jennie noted the sound of laughter and commotion in the background.
• Soon after getting into bed from the phone call, Jennie heard a loud thud on the roof, followed by the sound of something rolling off. It wasn’t long after this noise that Jennie discovered the smoke in the house.

All of these strange events made strong doubts creep into the minds of the Sodders about the fate of their children. 

A series of curious happenings continued following the fire.

• The rescue team did not find any trace of the five missing children in the rubble.
• A follow-up inspection led a telephone repairman to tell the Sodders that it appeared someone had cut the wiring rather than it burning. They then realized that the power should have been off throughout their house if it had been faulty wiring, yet that wasn’t the case.
• The Sodders discovered a strange object made of rubber in their yard in the days after the fire. George strongly suspected that it was the encasement of an explosive device used to start the fire.

Soon after, reported sightings poured in:

• A witness claimed to have seen a man fleeing the scene of the fire with a block and tackle device used to remove engines from vehicles. Just the type of device that could have disabled the two coal trucks from starting.
• A witness stated she saw the missing children in a car that passed by while the fire burned.
• Another lady claimed to have spotted the children around 50 miles west of Fayetteville in the company of two men and two women – all Italian.

The Sodders became increasingly desperate to get answers to what became of their children. They chased every lead and hired a private investigator to assist in the search. They wrote a letter to the FBI but could not secure assistance, reportedly due to a lack of cooperation from the Fayetteville police and fire departments. 

The Sodders had the site excavated and went through the debris looking for any sign of the children – but nothing turned up. 

George and Jennie Sodder offered a reward of $5,000 for information. They erected an enormous billboard along Route 16 that stood for years.

The last major development occurred in 1968 when Jennie Sodder received a letter postmarked in Kentucky with just a picture inside. The back of the photo read, “Louis Sodder. I love brother Frankie. Ilil Boys. A90132 or 35.” The photo bore an uncanny resemblance to their son Louis, who was 9-years-old at the time of the fire. 

The Sodders once again hired a private investigator to follow up on the letter to see if anything would come of it. They once again came up empty-handed.

George Sodder passed away not long after they received the letter. He left behind Jennie and numerous unresolved questions about his children. Jennie became more and more withdrawn as she secluded herself inside their home. She wore only black clothes in a show of continued mourning.

She kept up the billboard until she finally passed away in 1989. The remaining Sodder children and grandchildren continued to investigate the circumstances of the fire. 

The mystery continues to this day as questions about what happened still far outweigh answers.

Theories abound as many think the children perished in the fire and that it completely incinerated their remains. Several people believe the children were kidnapped by someone they knew, which explains why they didn’t put up a struggle. 

Some think the Sodders were victims of arson and that the children were taken to Italy or sold into slavery – perhaps by someone with ties to the mafia. 

The real truth may never be known, but one sad truth cannot be changed – George and Jennie Sodder both left this world without ever having closure about the fate of their five precious children. The torment and nightmare of their lives following the fire is an unspeakable tragedy that no one should ever have to face. 

What do you think happened?

It is very noticeable that a lot of traditional Appalachian practices have waned, and some have almost disappeared completely. These old cultural traditions are being lost on new generations. Many of us no longer know how to can our own food or plant by the signs. Few still observe long held superstitions, such as “death comes in threes” and “dreaming of bees is a sign of good luck.”

I have observed it in my own children, who have little to no interest in learning the beliefs and skills of our forefathers.

The world at large is becoming more homogenous thanks to the widespread use of the internet. Information is literally at your fingertips, and exchanges with folks from different areas of the country and even the world are common. My son has friendships with people from Peru, New Zealand and the UK. They routinely discuss the geopolitical impact of the War in Ukraine or the upcoming US presidential election on world events.

That would have been unthinkable in my day. The closest I would have come to a similar experience would have been to put a message in a bottle, throw it in the Clinch River and hope it floated all the way to Ecuador.

I see all these rapid changes and think how different my childhood was from my parents. Then how much their childhoods differed from their parents, and so on. Very few people want to be drastically different from their peers, so some of this “Appalachian assimilation” is inevitable.

Television and social media define social norms these days. Today’s youth are all exposed to the same music and entertainment. Whoever gets the most “likes” and clicks sets the cultural pace.

It is odd to me that in a world where everyone is trying to stand out and get noticed, the more everyone acts the same. Few people have the fortitude to be unapologetically different.

My question is: what can, or even should, we do to preserve our culture? Change isn’t necessarily bad, but I don’t relish the thought of Appalachians becoming the new Mohicans.

The best answer I can come up with is that we need to make a renewed commitment to value and appreciate these traditions. The way we talk, the way we dress, and even our core values are worth preserving and passing down. It starts with us.

I had the worst time getting to sleep last night. We’ve been having strange weather with wild swings between cool and hot. This night was warm, so I flipped on my ceiling fan to cool off.

I tossed and turned in the twilight between sleep and wake. The rhythmic slapping of the fan spinning round and round put me in something of a hypnotic trance. I’d read some of William Faulkner’s “The Sound and the Fury” earlier to wind down. The last thing I read before going to bed was a small section in the book about fishing, so I guess it stuck in my head.

I tossed and turned, looking for peace, trying to get the sound of the fan off my mind. I have a weird way of remembering events. At least I think it is weird. Almost exactly like you see in the movies and television, it is as if clouds part as my memories slowly come into view.

It felt like a dream, but it was a vivid memory of the first time I remember going fishing. I must have been around five or six years old. My dad had taken my older brother, Billy, and me to go fishing along the riverbank. The memory started just as our car pulled in to park.

We got out as Dad retrieved the fishing poles, tackle box, and bait. Billy is four years older than me, so Dad let him carry the bait. I remember noticing it looked a lot like the small tubs mom used to make green onion dip. Instead of the delicious concoction I loved to dip corn chips in, this container had earthworms – nowhere near as appetizing.

I was having a grand old time sliding down the hillside like a surfer riding a nice wave until Dad hollered out to us, “Watch out for snakes!” Now, that was some sound advice, but I am not good at clearing the thought of a snake encounter from my mind. This was when I first discovered I suffer from snake paranoia. I spent a fair portion of my day watching the entire circle around me as if I were on guard duty.

We were fishing where an old dam used to be. It was quite a hotspot for fishermen, and we encountered several along the way. Only one of these folks stood out to me, some old coot in overalls that had just given up on his day at the river. He was headed up the hill as we were headed down. His body language told the story of dejection at not catching any fish. His face was a bright red and sweaty, and he squinted his beady eyes from the sun. Dad called him by name, a name that now escapes me, and asked how his luck had been. The old fella reached up to his well-worn fishing cap, which he tugged up and down as he shook his head from side to side in defeat. He muttered with a big chaw of tobacco planted in his jaw, “Not a d@mn bite, Bill.” Well, I’m no fan of random cussing even these days, but back then you rarely heard men let a swear loose around women or children. I was a little thrown off by this crusty old codger. He went on his way, so we continued down the hill.

We finally set up in a spot that must have been popular with folks fishing. It was a bare mound of earth from all the foot traffic trampling it. A crushed tub of bait and a couple of empty bottles of Coke were lying around the area. We set up camp and prepared for the big day.

Finally, it was time to get down to the business of fishing. Dad worked up the poles. He put on the sinkers and hooks. I was curiously taking it all in. Then it was time to bait the hooks. He opened up the tub of earthworms and yanked out a wiggly worm. He stuck it on the hook as the thing started squirming every which way. Dad arched back with the pole, then snapped his wrist forward as the worm sailed through the air halfway across the river before plunging into the water with a small splash. The whole process didn’t look too hard so I was anxious for my turn.

Billy went next. He wasn’t quite as good as Dad but he still managed to get off a decent cast.

Finally, it was my turn. Dad put on the hook and sinker. He then said, “Grab a worm.” This command threw me off, “Uh, you want me to grab the worm? Uh, ok, I guess.” I gingerly stuck a couple of fingers in the tub slowly fishing around (no pun intended) for one of the buried worms. I finally got a hold of one and yanked it out. It quickly wiggled out of my hand and fell to the ground. I scooped it back up and handed it to Dad. In hindsight, I think he intended for me to bait my own hook, but I am guessing he saw my struggles with getting the worm out and figured there was a pretty fair chance I’d stab myself with the hook.

I didn’t fare much better with casting. Dad showed me the technique of pushing the button on my fishing pole and letting it go at just the right time. It sounded simple and he made it look easy. Unfortunately, it was not so for me. My first attempt went about as poor as it could go. I let go of the button late so the fishing line just snapped like a whip. It made a clanging sound, then swung back and forth in the air. I bet the poor worm was just hoping to be put out of its misery at this point. It was an embarrassing failure, to say the least.

The second cast wasn’t much better. I let go closer to the right time but the worm just dropped straight down at my feet. I guess the worm probably died from the abuse long before it ever hit the water. It was a humbling experience as a child. Seeing that I had a long way to go in my casting, Dad held my hand and pushed the button on the third attempt. Thankfully for my flagging self-esteem, this time worked.

Here is where I learned another valuable lesson about fishing: patience. Being a rookie, I thought the fish would jump right on the hook for me, quick and easy. That was not the case. Nothing happened for a longggggg time. For a little boy, it was painfully boring. Excruciatingly boring. I held the pole as long as I could stand it, but I eventually laid it down and moved on to other activities.

I picked up the tub of worms and shook it to watch them move around for entertainment. I poked the worms with a stick to get some more action going. I lured an ant into walking on the stick. It was like a lumberjack navigating a log. As you can imagine, that got old real quick.

My mind wandered off every which way. Five minutes felt like five hours to me. I eventually forgot to even check my pole for action.

After I’d long since given up on catching any fish, I heard Dad quietly say, “Shane, I think you got a bite.” Sure enough, I saw my line move a tiny bit in the water. Dad picked up the pole and slowly pulled out a bit of the line to check the tension. He said, “Yeah, one is nibbling on it.” He let me hold the line so I could feel it. Sure enough, I felt a small jerk on it. He told me to wait, so I sat there with my little heart racing a mile a minute with excitement. Finally, the fish made its run, and Dad helped me give the pole a big yank. Then he started reeling it in as fast as he could make that lever spin. It got to the edge of the riverbank before he handed the pole to me to finish reeling it in.

I could barely hold the pole up, but I kept up the fight. I finally got it up to where we were standing and marveled at the creature frantically flopping back and forth before my eyes. It was my very first fish. I quickly grew an affection for him. Nothing could ever replace it.

It felt like a Great White Shark to me but ended up just being one of the infamous Redeyes that are so aplenty around the area. I was actually happy to hear that they weren’t good for eating. Dad took the hook out and released it back into the water as it swam merrily away. I was glad my new friend was going to live to see another day.

It was about that time that I snapped out of my dreamlike state. I felt a lot more at peace than I had earlier. I rolled over with a little smile on my face and a warm heart, then quickly found that sleep I’d been searching for.

There is just something about reliving those good days from time to time. You never really know what your best days are until they become memories.

I realized last week that I need to get my financial situation under control. It started with finally working up a budget, and the reality that I had a balance on a couple of credit cards was sobering. I decided to attack those credit cards with a vengeance to get them to a zero balance. Nothing was off the table. In fact, if I make it to midnight, it will be 3 full days since I have gone out and spent a dime. No eating out; no gas; no shopping; no groceries…nada. I’ve sold stuff on eBay for as little as $0.99 just to round up money.

It hasn’t been easy, but it has been super rewarding. I paid both cards to zero yesterday, and it was the best feeling I have had in a long time.

I’ve really exhausted almost all of my groceries. I just ate a peanut butter sandwich made up of the two heels that were left in the bag. Now I am no fan of a heel of bread but you’d be surprised what you will do to save money.

While I was eating that heel sandwich, it reminded me of an old saying I heard from my mom, who said she got it from my grandmother. It goes “poor people have poor ways.”

I guess there’s two ways to look at that old saying. One cynical interpretation would be that poor people have habits that make/keep them poor. There’s probably some truth to that.

Another more optimistic take (and the one I am subscribing to) is that poor people are thrifty and make the most of what they have without wasting.

The reason I choose this more positive version is for people like my uncle. He was quite wealthy but was notorious for reusing coffee grounds to stretch the coffee out. He could well afford the finest coffee in the land, but had a life habit of recycling the coffee. Growing up without money led him to see it as a waste to not reuse them.

I remember when I was a youngster that we would add a little water into our hair spray bottle after every use to stretch it out as far as it would go. I vividly remember unscrewing the lid and holding the bottle under the tiny stream of water that filled it back up, then giving it a shake to mix it up for next time. Over time, we found the perfect water to hairspray level that balanced it out to where it would give enough hold without being too watered down. It probably ended up saving us $2 every 3-4 months.

I am proud and happy to have been able to pay off my credit cards because they truly are a tool of the devil…or banks, which is pretty much the same thing. It also has been fun to be thriftier, so I am fixing to head to the kitchen now to make that oatmeal I have that is a couple months past the expiration date.

Who doesn’t enjoy a nice holiday filled with fireworks? I know I sure do. Seeing the sky light up in a panorama of colors is a thrill that never gets old. We all get transformed into little kids while we look up toward the heavens. The thunderous sound of the explosions adds to the spectacle. Sorry, I got carried away for a minute.

The Fourth of July, in particular, is a wondrous day of celebrating our freedom. There are cookouts, going to the lake, vacations, beer-drinking, going to the pool, family get-togethers, outdoor concerts, and any number of other ways people celebrate. As nice as these things are, it all leads up to fireworks. Those are the undercard but the fireworks are the main event, to use boxing terminology.

One of my strongest memories from childhood was back in the days of lawless home fireworks. Younger people may not remember this, but back in the day, almost anything went with fireworks. It felt like being in downtown Fallujah during the Iraq War, with explosions surrounding you in every direction.

I was but a wee lad back then and one year we watched a great little neighborhood fireworks display, nothing particularly different about it. Back then, various neighbors would set off fireworks and firecrackers scattered over around an hour or so, then everything would calm down around bedtime. That year seemed no different as my brother and I hopped into bed after all the action died down.

Lo-and-behold, about the time I fell asleep, a house-shaking, deafening, make-your-heart-stop explosion went off right above our heads. It literally took my breath as I rose up in bed and instantly made sure my heart was right with God, in case I was about to meet my demise. Dad and Mom rushed into the room frantically and we all were shook (literally and metaphorically) by this jarring event. I thought someone had hit us with a hand grenade.

Dad went outside to investigate and determined that some bratty punk had apparently lobbed a Cherry Bomb onto our roof. I am sure they got a great laugh about it, but they took about 5 years off my life in the process. Ok, I am being a little dramatic, but I did alter my ability to fall asleep for the next week or so.

I guess that must have been a common problem back then, as it wasn’t long after this that Cherry Bombs were outlawed in Virginia. Despite all I went through that night, I was kinda sad to hear that they were made illegal. It got so tame for a while that the slight popping of bottle rockets and crackling of firecrackers were all you would hear in the neighborhood. It was just a little pathetic, honestly.

I mean, the Fourth of July is all about freedom, yet they took away the thrill and excitement of potential danger. Who hasn’t heard stories of someone losing an eye or maybe a couple of fingers from holding a firework when it exploded? Horror stories of wayward bottle rockets going in the direction of an innocent bystander were commonplace.

I say bring back the Cherry Bombs and the old roman candles that were capable of blasting you to kingdom come. Freedom isn’t free. If a few people lose a digit or an eye every year, that is the collateral damage sacrifice for the entertainment of millions of the rest of us. Plus, those make for some great stories, right?

Ok, I really got carried away there. Yeah, I guess they make laws for people like me to save us from ourselves, dadgumit. Oh well, at least I have the memories.

Hope everyone has a happy (and, most importantly, safe) Fourth!

I have been blessed with being both Appalachian and Southern and I wouldn’t trade either of those identities for all the maple syrup in Vermont, and I am a big fan of maple syrup, so that’s saying something coming from me. More complicated, I often get asked if I am a hillbilly. In fact, in one of our last Real Appalachia YouTube videos, Melody asked me if I consider myself to be a hillbilly. Being a hillbilly isn’t necessarily an automatic distinction you’re born into, so I had to ask myself – what is a hillbilly? How does one qualify to be a hillbilly?

I decided to get to the bottom of this question, once and for all. The first place I went for answers? Google, of course. Wouldn’t ya just know, Google had plenty of answers. The first answer I went to described a hillbilly this way:

“If you refer to someone as a hillbilly, you are saying in a fairly rude way that you think they are uneducated and unsophisticated because they come from the countryside.” (collinsdictionary.com)

A second website offered this:

“There is no shortage of hillbilly images in American popular culture. Whether a barefoot, rifle-toting, moonshine-swigging, bearded man staring out from a floppy hat or a toothless granny in homespun sitting at a spinning wheel and peering suspiciously at strangers from the front porch of a dilapidated mountain cabin, the hillbilly, in all his manifestations, is instantly recognizable.” (encyclopediaofarkansas.net)

I don’t really like either of those definitions very much. I don’t see anything about either of those descriptions that I would say are positive or flattering.

Now, having said that, I do qualify as a hillbilly under some of their qualifications. I would consider myself unsophisticated. I just looked up and down at myself sitting here at my laptop writing this piece and I see that my clothes don’t match and my t-shirt is just a little bit too snug for my belly. I would say that alone could qualify me as unsophisticated so I won’t waste any more time on that one. I do, however, have a college degree so I wouldn’t say I am totally uneducated.

As for the second description, I am not much on going barefoot personally. I think that goes back to my mom instilling a fear of tetanus in me at a young age. I was afraid of stepping on a rusty nail and then developing lockjaw or “tha lockjaw” as I would more than likely have said it. So, going barefoot is a big no for me. Strike one.

Rifle-toting? Yes, I have toted a rifle plenty of times in my life. I had a pretty nice rifle collection at one time, but a good old-timey divorce caused that collection to go up in smoke. I am not bitter though. I still have a few pistols I have accumulated over the years since the loss of my rifles. I do occasionally miss my .303 British Enfield, it was the cheapest rifle I had, but it was deadly accurate. Oh well, my eyesight ain’t what it used to be anyways so I need to just let it all go and move on with life. I will just leave it at saying I would definitely tote a rifle if I could afford one but those things are pretty dadgum expensive these days.

Bearded? Well, I most certainly have facial hair and, try as I may, it doesn’t grow out to a full “Duck Dynasty” beard that I would love to have. Sadly, at a certain point mine is so splotchy and patchy that a body might think I have the red mange. As much as the red mange ain’t a good look for dogs, it looks even worse on the human male face. I speak from experience.

Floppy hat? Oddly enough, I just bought a floppy straw hat that I absolutely love so I can check this box wholeheartedly.

I am not a woman nor a grandmother, nor do I identify as one or whatever you need to say to cover yourself these days so I will move along…

I absolutely do peer suspiciously at strangers from my front porch and you should too. It is a dangerous world out here. I miss the good old days when you could leave your door open and all you had to worry about was getting tetanus from stepping on a rusty nail, but those days are sadly long gone. Why, these days you might even have a stranger pull up into your yard and dump out a box of rusty nails just to try to get you.

I prefer to call my house a modest little home on a small patch of land instead of a dilapidated mountain cabin, but to each their own.

In the end, Google ended up not being a whole lot of help. After I total all my points up, it appears I am sitting at about 50-60% hillbilly according to their definitions. I have never heard of someone being a half-bred hillbilly and I wouldn’t settle for that anyways. I am more of an all-or-nothing type of fella. I need to find more proof that I am a hillbilly…but how and where?

As I sit here typing and looking around the room, I see I have not one but two moonshine jugs on display for decorations. I may or may not (but definitely do) have hidden away a mason jar filled with a clear liquid that is great for remedying the symptoms of a cold. I have pictures of a coal tipple and another of an old barn hanging on my walls. I am still not totally satisfied that I qualify to be a hillbilly. I have two Bibles in my living room and I read somewhere that hillbillies are God-fearing, so that is a plus for me.

In my kitchen, I have a drawer totally dedicated to holding my bags from Walmart and Dollar General that I use to line my bathroom waste basket and to use as my lunchbox for work. On a side note, I prefer to use the Dollar General bags for toting food and drinks. It seems to be more durable and has that nice yellow color to it that is more eye-catching.

I have two half gallon glass jugs that used to hold blackberry cider. You don’t get nice glass jugs everyday, so I plan on reusing them someday. It is just that someday hasn’t come in the last 5+ years I have had them.

I have a bottle of apple cider vinegar because it is good for literally everything. Everybody needs some apple cider vinegar in their kitchen, just trust me on that one. 90% of the worlds ailments would be cured if everyone had a bottle of apple cider vinegar and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide.

Three of my four chairs at the kitchen table match. The other one kinda looks like the other three, so I am good with it. It takes a pretty discerning eye to notice the one had some different design to it, but the color is pretty darn close. The oddball one happens to be my daughter’s favorite chair because it is smooth and doesn’t have little knobs that raise up and bump her legs. All in all, that worked out pretty good for me.

I have a metal “Moon Pie” sign hanging in my kitchen as well.

I have a quart of apple butter in a mason jar that is getting pretty low. Man, I kick myself for not getting one more quart, but I was thought I could stretch this one out a little bit further. I should have known I am powerless to stop myself from eating apple butter so that one is on me.

I have an empty bottle of Mothman root beer for decorations. I am not sure if that makes me a hillbilly or just weird.

I have an oil lantern filled and ready to go sitting right beside my sink, just in case the power goes out and the batteries in my flashlight happen to go dead too. You can’t be too prepared for generating light.

I have a picture of Jesus that I used to see in my Sunday school when I was a little boy, but I can’t figure out where to hang it and, also, am not sure if hanging Jesus in the kitchen is disrespectful or if I should put it in a more prominent place.

Anyways, I will rest my case now. I think I have proven my hillbilly credentials at this point. Oh, sure, I could go to my bedrooms and my garage and say what is in them, but I think that would just be showing off at this point, I have proven enough. I sure don’t want to be accused of being a showboat about my hillbilly heritage.

I guess I said allllllllll that to say this. There really isn’t a test you can pass or a bloodline that makes you a hillbilly. Hillbilly is where the heart is and my heart is in the hills. If that makes me unsophisticated and uneducated then I guess that’s ok too, just leave me and my shoes-wearin’, half-bearded, pistol-packin’, floppy hat-lovin’ self alone or I guess I will stare at you suspiciously from the front porch of my modest home…ya hear?

I went to get a haircut this evening, which I don’t suppose is big news to anyone including me but it still inspired me to write so I am going with it. Since I have moved from my hometown, I have got into the habit of going to what I call a “chop shop” or, basically, one of the high-volume retail salons that get you in and out in about 15 minutes. I have fallen into the trap of going to them because they’re pretty quick and easy but the experience always leaves me a little cold. I can’t help but contrast that with the good ol’ days of yore when I went to my hometown barber at Don’s Barber Shop.

Every time I go to get my haircut these days, without exception, the ol’ gal (they’ve always been gals so far) asks me if I have ever been there before so I explain that I have and dutifully give them my phone number so they can pull up my account. Now, I have been there 10 times or more since I have moved to town and yet they never ever know me from the man on the moon.

The gal cutting my hair this time read the notes on my account, then asked me, “It looks like we’ve been doing a number 4 and scissor-cutting the top, does that sound right?” All I could think was “I don’t know a number 4 from a number 200, lady, I must have missed the lesson that came after learning what number 1 and number 2 was during potty training. Let’s just go with what you’ve got there.” Instead, I politely responded, “Yeah, I think that is right” and let her go to work on lopping off a couple inches.

Let me tell you right here and right now, in all my 20+ years of patronage Don never had to ask me if I’d been there before or if he’d used a number 4 the last time. Why, he even knew my family going back decades and he always gave me the exact same haircut for 20 years with no questions asked. No muss, no fuss, just good conversation and consistency. Nothing fancy was needed nor expected.

Speaking of conversation, the lady barber put me through the same questions I’d been subjected to the last ten times I’ve been there: ”Where do you work?…Do you have any kids?” It felt like we were out on a blind date…it always does.

Don knew my kids by name, where I went to church, a good portion of my family tree and just about anything a person could ever want to know about somebody.

In all fairness, I have to say that throughout history women have had the reputation for gossiping but I can tell you that I got more town news, speculation, and goings on in Don’s Barber Shop than I ever got anywhere else. For anyone wanting the scoop on what’s happening in town or the world, go check out a barber shop filled with men someday.  

The chop shop makes everything sooooo easy, you can check in online and show up just in time to hit an open chair. They get right to work on you and send you on your merry way lickety-split. You really can’t beat their turnaround time.

At Don’s, it was always on a first-come-first-served basis and you really never knew who might be in line with you, friend or foe. It could either be the highlight of your day by seeing an old friend or it could make for some awkward silence and exchanges if someone you had beef with happened to be there or even a combination of the two. You might get lucky and weight five minutes or you might hit a busy time and wait an hour. There was a little bit of excitement about finding out what hand you would draw when you get there.

I wish I could make it back home to the barber shop, I would make that trade in a New York Minute. There’s no question that the retail salons are quick and convenient…but you will never convince me that they are progress.