I always enjoy a good local story and try to share a few of those here on TAP as I stumble onto them. One such tale is the story of the “Varmint of Burke’s Garden” that dates back to the 1950s in Tazewell County, Virginia. The reason this story jumped out at me was due to the fact that I once knew a varmint from Burke’s Garden back in my (very brief, thank God) loan collecting days. The scallywag (I try to use that word whenever I get the chance, I just like the sound of it) had gone severely delinquent on his truck loan and made off with an old Chevy he had kept hidden for a good while by using a “Farm Use” tag. We finally tracked him down and recovered the truck after much chase and trickery. We went so far as to have a guy hide under some leaves behind a tree stump to jump in the truck and take off with it while we had his attention diverted. The plan worked to perfection and that is enough about that varmint, this story is about THE Varmint of Burke’s Garden…

The Burke’s Garden Varmint was a wild creature that roamed Burke’s Garden back in the 1950s that decimated the local livestock numbers. He is said to have killed well over 400 sheep in his nearly year-long reign of terror. Local residents were at a loss to stop the predator and were unsure as to what it was that was doing so much damage (estimated at over $32,000 worth in total). Traps and other attempts to stop the killer were futile.

The Tazewell County Board of Supervisors decided to contract with an experienced big-game hunter from Arizona, Clell Lee, to track down the menace. Lee arrived to a lukewarm reception from the local community but went about his business of finding out what had been the source of so much destruction. He soon discovered a track located inside a block of ice that indicated it was the work of a large coyote. The finding was quite surprising to local residents as there hadn’t been a coyote sighting in the area before.

Lee’s trained dogs soon picked up the scent of the coyote and the hunt began. Lee, along with the sheriff and other local residents, headed out to find the animal and put an end its killing spree. The first night ended without finding the coyote but Lee insisted they start back out again the next morning at daybreak. The decision was somewhat controversial as the following morning was a Sunday and local citizens had always held that was a day of rest and going to church, not suitable for hunting.

The dogs soon found the scent of the coyote that morning and gave chase in a hunt that lasted for several hours. Finally, in a scene fitting for an old western movie, the coyote was found and shot dead in the Joe Moss Cemetery by a Burke’s Garden resident named Alfred Jones. As you might expect, the coyote wasn’t given a proper burial despite meeting his Waterloo in a cemetery. The Varmint was found to weigh in at 35 pounds and 4 ½ feet in length with fangs extending for a full inch.

The coyote was then hung from a tree just outside the local courthouse where it was held on display for a good while with an estimated 7,500 people coming to view its body. A celebration dinner was held in Clell Lee’s honor and he was quite the local celebrity. The Burke’s Garden Varmint was stuffed and now resides on display inside the Crab Orchard Museum in Tazewell, Virginia.

As for that other varmint from Burke’s Garden, I saw him not too long ago and he is alive and well – not that I want him shot or anything. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to hear that he was still creating mischief in the area…

The first day of 2023 is upon us and with the New Year comes an old tradition that many of you are familiar with already. It is customary throughout the South and much of Appalachia to eat black-eyed peas and greens (either collard, mustard, or turnip) for good luck and prosperity. There are a few variations to this practice as some say you need to include a pork product in cooking the peas while others say it needs to be served with cornbread.

The practice in the South supposedly dates back to the Civil War when the troops of Union General Willam T. Sherman pillaged and plundered many areas of the South on his march to Atlanta. Sherman’s troops thought they took or destroyed all of the usable food but left behind the black-eyed peas unaware of their nutritional value. The Southern people ate the black-eyes peas to make it through the winter months and began to see the peas as a sign of good luck.

Many participants in this tradition say that you need to eat exactly 365 peas to ensure good luck throughout the year. If you come up short of 365 you will not have good fortune on an equal number of days in the year. If you eat more than 365 it will subtract your days with good luck by an equal amount to the number you go over.

The peas themselves are said by some to represent coins while the greens stand for the “green” in dollar bills. People who add cornbread to the meal do so in the belief that it signifies gold. The pork is added for multiple reasons – pigs have long been seen as a sign of health and wealth in the South. Pigs also are known for their inability to turn their head around fully to look backward so some say it means they are always looking ahead to the future.

Add all the ingredients together and it makes for a tasty meal that I participated in for the first time four years ago. I look forward to eating them again this year but I plan to eat a lot more greens this year – whether I like them or not…

December 30th marks the 52nd anniversary of one of the terrible mine disasters in our Appalachian history. Amy Pennington Brudnicki is a native of Hyden, Kentucky, and has kindly accepted our request to write about the explosion and aftermath that hit her hometown. Here is Amy’s account:

Hurricane Creek Mine Disaster

December 30th, 1970, began as any other day in the coalfields of southeastern Kentucky. On this morning, a group of hardworking miners started their day before the sun came up. They’d never see another sunrise. Shortly after noon, disaster struck when the Finley Coal Mine – located on Hurricane Creek in Hyden, Kentucky – exploded, killing all thirty-eight men inside.

The lone survivor, A.T. Collins, was about to enter the mine when the explosion occurred. The blast pelted him with debris, ripping his clothing and tearing the watch from his wrist. Lucky to be alive, he was left battered and bruised – blown some sixty feet from the mine’s entrance.

In the seventies, when the disaster occurred, all homes on Hurricane Creek that had phone service were on a party line – one phone line shared by many households. My aunt, who was visiting from Alabama, was on the phone with her husband when the officials from the mine came on the phone stating that they needed her to clear the line, that the mine had blown up.

I can only imagine the chill that she experienced when she heard those words because I know she felt the explosion shake the house. My Granny’s house, where she was visiting, was just around the bend from the mines.

Thirty-eight men went underground that fateful day – miners who labored hard, day in and day out, for the families they loved. As darkness fell, those men – the husbands, fathers, grandfathers, uncles, sons, friends, and neighbors – didn’t return home.

Lives were forever changed. Routines were forever changed. And hearts were forever broken. The wife who watched everyday as her husband approached the door with coal dust covering his face and a lunch bucket in his hand, she had become a widow. The children who waited for daddy to tuck them in at night, their world had fallen apart. And the mother who had to bury her son- I can’t even imagine her pain. In the blink of an eye, devastation struck these families . . . and the effects are still felt to this day.

In 2011, a memorial was completed on Hurricane Creek in honor of the thirty-eight men who lost their lives on December 30th, 1970. They are the true unsung heroes of Appalachia . . . ~ Amy

Amy is also the admin for the Facebook page dedicated to the memory of the miners who were lost that day. You can check it out at the link below:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/In-Memory-of-the-1970-Finley-Coal-Mine-Disaster/107344462639601

I flipped back through my photos for a particular picture I’d taken a few months ago. I noticed while I was going through them that I haven’t taken hardly any new pictures of my surroundings in almost a year. I am by no means a great photographer but I do love taking a picture to capture a moment in time.

At first, my explanation was that I “haven’t seen anything interesting” but I know that’s not true because I live in the most beautiful part of God’s green earth and I pass all sorts of cool things on my way to work. I made it a point to pay closer attention on my next drive and it was unreal how many beautiful things I saw – rolling farmland, old barns, unique old buildings, etc. It was like a whole world opened up to me.

I realize that I’d fallen into the trap of taking such beauty for granted. The problem wasn’t with my environment, it was with my attitude and awareness. I firmly believe we tend to find what we are looking for – if you’re looking for beauty, you’ll find beauty. If you look for the bad and negative, then you’ll surely find it.

I am happy to say my eyes have been reopened. One thing I love is fog so I take a lot of pictures of it – what are your favorite things to photograph?

Shane and Melody discuss what Christmas is like in Appalachia. Some of these traditions are native to Appalachia while others are more universal. The atmosphere at church the week before Christmas is joyful, with treats handed out in old-timey brown paper bags. They standard items inside were candy, an orange or apple (or both) and a pack of peanuts, along with a giveaway item such as a pencil, pen, bookmark, etc. We discuss this tradition and several more in the video below.

We would love to hear more about your traditions and customs, whether you live in Appalachia or somewhere else in this great big world.

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.

Southern Highlanders was a part of the Ford Motor Company’s “Americans at Home” series and tells the story of folks living in the Great Smoky Mountains in 1947. It has more emphasis on the positive aspects of mountain life as opposed to many other films primary focus on poverty. The film captures the music, faith, and lifestyle of rural Appalachia as well as anything I have watched from the era.

This is the only episode of the Americans at Home series that I’ve seen so far but it must’ve been designed to have more of an uplifting tone and take on the subject matter they present. I like to watch things that leave me feeling more of a sense of pride and celebration rather than gloom and doom, as is too often the case.