Alaina Mclendon

Alaina Mclendon, Age 12, Student; Harlan, Kentucky:

"I have seven brothers and sisters. I like living in the mountains. I really don’t like go hunting or nothing but it feels different when I go to my dad’s house (Columbus, Ohio), It just feels different. It feels different because there is no mountains… It just feels weird, feels really weird. 

Here there are no tornados, no hurricanes. 

I love to play basketball, come to the Harlan Boys and Girls Club, play games on my iPod and watch TV. Having seven brothers and sisters, it’s crazy. They are always fighting… Where’s my game? Where’s this? Where’s that? 

I really like the Boys and Girls Club. It’s fun. They come up with all these fun games and plan trips for us like the one we are going on tomorrow. We are going to Sky Zone in Johnson City. It’s like a trampoline park. They also do homework programs. Power Hour is when you do your homework. You have to do something educational. If you don’t have anything (from school) to do they will create something educational for you to do. It really helps me in school. It helps my grades. I like school and I miss school (in the summer). But I also like summer.

Some of the fun times I have living in the mountains is going four-wheeling, going mudding. Mudding is when you put on old clothes, you don’t want to get your good ones all muddy and dirty, and go four wheeling on a wet day. You go where all the mud holes are. It is really fun because you get mud all over you riding the four-wheeler up in the mountains. Seen deer up there but no bears. 

One of the saddest times in my life was when my step-dad died. I guess he got too old. He just got sick. I was ten years old. I miss him a lot. We used to go to the lake, four-wheeling, ride bikes, and stuff. My mom probably misses him the worst".

Susan Sanders

Susan Sanders, Retired; Big Stone Gap, Virginia and Destin, Florida:

“Big Stone Gap was the greatest place in the world to grow up, to be honest with you. We had all our schools right here in the middle of town. They don’t exist anymore; they’ve all been torn down. We walked home every day for lunch because the school didn’t have a cafeteria big enough to feed us. We had 50 minutes for lunch, and there was a Safety Patrol that helped us cross the street, and if you lived within a mile and a half of school, you had to walk home and eat. 

It’s been a very, very active community. I grew up with great people, and a town that raised you. As a matter of fact, I’ve gotten in trouble with lots of my friends parents a long time before I got home. 

A lot of our food was grown out in our yards. We had a kind of Farmer’s Market at the time, but you cooked fresh food almost all of the time. I guess one of the distinctive things I tell people is that there were always beans on the stove. In the summer time, it was salad peas or green beans, and in the winter, it was either Great Northerns or pintos. But we always had beans. My father was a car dealer, and there were people a whole lot worse off than we were at the time I was growing up, but I can’t remember eating meat during the week. We had meat on Sundays. We ate vegetables. 

I cook all the time. I cook soup beans, meat loaf; you know…just plain old food. I don’t fix a lot of exotic food.

Many of us have come back. I’ve been gone twice. They say you can’t come home again, but I’ve done it twice. I actually came back and raised my children here. The first time I left is when I went to college, went off on my own and got married. Came back, probably 20 years later and bought a business here that was a food business…a grocery store, but I didn’t make it, to be honest with you. I was here for eleven years then moved to Florida with a freshman, a sophomore and a senior in high school. 

This region has changed drastically. First of all, a lot of the things we have in this area were paid for by coal severance tax that we don’t have anymore. So, the schools are having to downsize, schools are getting rid of the arts because they don’t have money for it anymore. Lots and lots and lots of people are leaving. I would say this is probably a bedroom community. I don’t know so many people who can live here who have to make a living. Unless you’re in healthcare or education, it’s very difficult to make a living here. Fortunately, we still have schools, and we still have hospitals.

Makes me feel sad that it’s that way. But it depends on what stage you are in life. I’m glad my children are in Bristol, instead of here. My daughter lived here with her children for three years. She remarried and moved to Bristol. But the opportunities they have over there are so much greater than what they have here. And I’m glad they’re getting that opportunity.”

Jim Webb

Jim Webb, Poet, Radio Personality and Owner/Caretaker of Wiley’s Last Resort on Top of Pine Mountain; Whitesburg, Kentucky:

“What makes Appalachia special? You know what? That’s becoming harder and harder to answer. This business of hillbilly, and the stereotypes…people being offended by being called a hillbilly, people calling themselves hillbilly with no right to call themselves hillbilly, Hillbilly Days in Pikeville where they all dress up and go around with stupid hats and stuff like that. Most of them are rich people, and all. And yet you see all of the stupid stuff that goes on here that people do here. You try to do good and you try to help, but some people are just totally impossible to help and do things that are completely against their own self interest. 

Almost always when I go to town, I drive through Whitesburg. I don’t take the bypass because it’s a beautiful, little town, and the road is nice without all that traffic and stuff. The bypass is just like every other one…zip, zip, zip. Whitesburg is just such an exceptional town. The arts community… I thank my lucky stars because this is where I always wanted to end up. On Pine Mountain is actually where I wanted to end up, Whitesburg being the town. I’d have a hard time living in Whitesburg. It’s a little too big for me. 

All right. Let me read you a poem:

I changed the title of this one halfway into my career. It started out being called, This Is A Biggie. But now, its title is, I Don’t Mind Living.

I don’t mind living
In a small community, 
I just wish
I was taller.”