Jeremy Brock

Jeremy Brock, Coal Miner and BBQ Competition Competitor; Evarts, Kentucky: 

“I’m a coal miner, repairman/electrician. I [have worked] underground in deep mines for fourteen years. Once you get used to it, I wouldn’t do nothing else. It’s a culture; it’s brotherhood. 

When you first go in, it will make you nervous ‘cause the mountains will pop, crack, and moan. It’ll scare you, but after a while, you get to know the sounds; you get to know everything around it. It sounds like it’s coming in, but it ain’t gonna fall. It’s just the weight setting on the mountain. It’ll mess with your mind for a little while. When you pillar, you’re more than likely gonna get almost caught sometimes. You’re pulling a pillar, and it’s falling. It’s designed to break where it is, but you’ll be standing there. You know where it’s gonna break but still, it’ll put the fear of God in you. 

I’m on third shift. We do all the maintenance that the coal run people can’t. We’ll change the motors; if they can make it run they’ll make it run. Then we come in and fix it right. That’s what we do. We service the equipment. 

When I was young, I wanted to get away from it [Appalachia]. I wanted to go away. And now that everything’s hit the fan, like with the coal mines and everything, I look at it and I just think, you know, if somebody don’t stand there and do something then it’s gonna die. And it breaks my heart now because I just don’t want to go anywhere else. It’s home. 

September’s [supposed to be a lay off]. We had a contract with US Steel that they pulled from us, and it ‘bout killed us, but then they come back and wanted the coal. We were very fortunate. 

Hillbilly? Some people take it as offensive but me, that’s what I am. It’s not really a bad word. We’re self-reliant people. We can do a whole lot of stuff people in the city can’t do. A lot of us can farm; a lot of us are auto mechanics. Anything we want to be we do it. We’ve got what most people ain’t got. We gotta do it ourselves if you want something done. MacGyver [had to be a coal miner.] A coal miner can fix anything with a cap wedge and black tape. You’ve got to make do with what you’ve got; to work with you’ve got to do with. 

I guess these days things are a lot fast paced. People don’t care about people. Mountain people actually care about the other. That’s what me and my wife say. Even if there’s a coal accident in West Virginia and kills somebody, you feel it because you know what they’re going through. I’m pretty sure the city [people] don’t do that. If somebody gets killed, oh well, somebody gets killed. [Here] It’s like a brotherhood, we’re mountain people. We care about people. 

[The proper pronunciation of Appalachia] Appalat-chuh. I don’t know who came up with Appalay-shuh. I just laugh. I know they’re not from here. They’re somebody from away from here. 

You’ll see a media show and they’ll be five people that’s crazy as a bat, I’m sorry but that’s what it is, and instead of showing the actual people there, they’ll go get them. It’ll be like one percent of the population, but that’s what they’ll show. People should just come and see for themselves. You know, meet the people, and they’ll be very surprised. 

I really hide it, but the drug epidemic in our area. I was a part of that; I got addicted for about five years. I’ve been clean now for eight years. My little girl [turned me around]. Kytalynn, she’s eight. She’s my world. I’ve got a little boy now too; he just turned one in May. He’s a handful now. That set me straight. I was wanting to [be set straight]. That’s what a lot of people don’t understand. They look at these people and [say] ah, ‘That’s a dopehead.’

People don’t understand it’s a sickness. It really is and the people that are doing it don’t want to do it. They done something for fun or experimenting, it got them, and they can’t get away from it. It can be done. I did it. You just gotta put your nose down and go and don’t look back. 

My kids. That’s everything you live for. People will tell you, you don’t know love till you have kids. That’s definitely true. [I’m] a country man. It’s just what it is. Once you get a kid, that’s what you live for. The coal miners that go underground, they don’t do it for fun. People say they do it for money, that’s a lie. They got a family, they got kids, they got a wife they gotta provide for. That’s why they do it. Family’s important to the country person. I teach my kids [the importance of Appalachian culture] every chance I get. Be who you want to be. 

My hobby is competition barbeque. This is highly competitive. I’m a new team, and I’m trying to get started. I do a little bit of catering here and there. I hate to brag, but I am the best in Harlan County. Hands down. Come taste it, I’ll tell you, I’ll show you. It’s good. I’ll hopefully turn it into something, after coal mining maybe, if coal mining falls through. 

I’m trying to get a trailer up, but times is hard. Look around, these people got seventy-eighty thousand dollar rigs, and I’m cooking out of a tent and a Tractor Supply trailer. That smoker right there is high dollar. I’ve got about twelve thousand dollars with everything I do. It’s been building for two years. 

My wife bought me a barrel smoker from Wal-Mart. I went by it, I was nineteen years old, and I said, ‘Man, I’d like to have one of them.’ I worked second-shift in the mines. Well, I come home one night and there it sit. That’s what she done. She worked at the nursing home as a nurse aid then. She used her own money, I didn’t know about it. I was very surprised. I cooked on that and it drove me crazy ‘cause you can’t control the temperature. Then we went to an electric smoker. It was a little easier and gave the food a better taste. 

I started cooking for people at the mines and cooking for little festivals with that electric smoker. They’s like, ‘That’s real good. You outta do something with it.’ Then, I finally made the step to the big one. Charcoal wood, that’s all you use. Got a computer system to control the airflow. It’s just wonderful. People don’t realize just how much goes into a competition. It’s the color, the size, and the shape. It’s meticulous work. It’s all about the little details. [I’ve been competing] two years. This will be our tenth contest. We won sixth place in pork in Sevierville out of sixty-two teams. We just placed ninth in chicken in Knoxville a month ago. We’ve placed fifth in pork in Barbourville. We placed fourth in pork in Tennessee last year. We’re just getting to where we know everything; we’re getting to know things. There’s a lot of tough teams, but I’m gonna give it hell trying.”

Colton Smith

Colton Smith, Auto Parts Store Assistant Manager; Marion, Virginia: 

[When asked about his love for automobiles] “Oh, yeah! I bet I’ve built twenty-two Chevrolet trucks over the past twenty years. [Rebuilt his first vehicle at age 12.] You probably seen it, I brought it to the car show. ’81 Chevrolet short bed. [It took] three months. Yeah, we redid it. Off the frame, restored it. 

[When asked who taught him to work on vehicles.] That man right there. That’s my dad. We painted it orange, put a big Dukes of Hazzard 01 on the side of it. Four-speed, 350 4 bolt main, thirty over. Had a set of forties on it, pretty nice, old truck. Hot rod. Oh, yeah. We don’t build nothing, but a hot rod. 

I don’t believe many city people could have done it. Honestly. I got a ‘84 ¾-ton we’re redoing. It’s gonna have 44’s on it, and a 454, when I get it done. [Will he sell it?] Yep, to somebody that wants ‘em more than I do. 

[I’m] Twenty, I’ll be twenty-one in September [and just] bought a brand new truck. Spent forty-two grand on it, but I like it. I wouldn’t own nothing, but a Chevrolet. 

I grew up on twenty-five acres. We had fifteen Tennessee Walkers at one point [and] rode all the time. I had a horse one time; it was like a frigging dog. I ain’t kidding! One time, I left the gate open. I was probably eleven, and I left the gate open. That sucker followed me home, and was sitting on the back porch, looking through the window. That ain’t no joke. 
Tractor plowed, put up hay, cut tobacco --- all the nine yards. I loved it, man. There’s just no other place like it. Go out there on your back porch, and not worry about nobody else. You know, we’ve never locked our house door, and I always leave the keys in my truck. You can’t do that anywhere else. 

Every time was fun. Not many thirteen, fourteen year olds can jump in a pond, and play with catfish. You know how that goes. I fish all the time. We have a house in Ridge Valley now. It’s got a big, old pond. We put two hundred fifty catfish in it this spring. Not much on hunting. I don’t like the cold. 

That’s about it. [I] build cars and farm. 

[Toughest time] Probably when I lost my grandpa, honestly. I was ten years old. Yeah, rough times. He was just; he was my idol, man. I hung out with him every day. He’d put me on the school bus, and get me off the school bus. He learnt me everything I knew. [He] farmed and everything, on his days off. He was the third man at W-L, a construction company out of Chilhowie [Virginia]. He was there forever. He built 81 [I-81]. Every time I smell asphalt, I think of pawpaw. 

[To me, a hillbilly is] somebody that goes up in the mountains. [The media] just portrays us like bad people still living in the 1700’s with slaves. The media has just blown up this little thing, the south. You can’t be a southerner no more. It’s just a bad thing to be. 

It’s all the same, all the time. You know everybody. You don’t know a stranger over here. 

You don’t ever see anybody sad in the mountains. Everybody has tough times; people in the mountains deal with ‘em. They don’t worry about it. It will always get better. God’s all right.”

Pam Howell

Pam Howell, I work for the head start preschool program, an anti-poverty program for three and four year olds, finance person; Marion, Virginia:

“I grew up in the very country part of something they called Adwolf. We didn’t lock our doors at night; we stayed out and played and caught June bugs, lightning bugs and told ghost stories. To me, it was a wonderful childhood. 

I’ve never lived anywhere else. I’m a small town girl and I like to keep small town. What makes [Appalachian culture] special to me is, I think everybody is kinda a neighbor. Even people that you maybe [don’t] know that well lend a helping hand. 

We’re all involved here today with an animal rescue group and the Humane Society. We’re trying to help homeless animals. People are out here just opening up their pocketbooks and helping us. You don’t meet many strangers here.[Working with the Humane Society] is very enriching for me because I’m a big animal lover and I don’t like to see the animals in the shelter get put down ‘cause there is too many. We work really hard to find them homes, rescues and foster homes for animals also. It’s just something I’ve loved all my life. I’ve been an animal person; I was the person who found the hurt frogs and all that. 

There was always something going on at my house. The worst thing that I ever did was; there was a coon hunter that lived in my neighborhood and he kept a raccoon caged in a cage to use as bait for his dogs to train them. So I caught him not home one day and I let his raccoon go. I just couldn’t handle that. Even though I’m from Appalachia, I’m not a hunter. I always have been [an animal lover]. 

[Appalachian perception] I think they think we’re a little bit ignorant and maybe not well educated and that we all eat cornbread and beans all day long. I have some friends in DC and other places and I’ve educated them a lot. I’ve had them down here and they all love it down here, by the way, when they come. Letting people know there’s people here like everywhere else. They’re hardworking, they’re educated; they’re members of their community; they go out and try to do things. 

There’s a lot of art and culture here that they don’t even realize exists. There is very talented musical people here; artistic people. I would just like for [people that don’t live in the mountains] to know that it’s not hillbillies. Let’s just put it that way. We’re not hillbillies. 

[The word hillbilly] use to offend me when I was a child. I had cousins from Pennsylvania, who would come down and they would call me a hillbilly and it would make me cry. In my mind a hillbilly was this barefoot person with a corncob pipe and no teeth and he ciphered on his fingers like Jethro on the Beverly Hillbillies. So it did offend me when I was little. [As an adult] I’m kinda proud of it. I have people when I have to call other places they’ll say, ‘You must be from the south.’ I’ll say, ‘Yes I am.’ 

I like to read a lot but I’m not really artistic, unfortunately. Reading and the cinema. I’m a big movie buff. I like them all; independent films, any of the major releases, and I have a soft spot for the Disney Pixar pictures. 

We didn’t have a lot of money when I was growing up and I was a child of divorce. It was not a popular thing in the early seventies. Children like that felt a little outcast. We didn’t have all the things that our friends had. I don’t know if that had anything to do with southern culture because that goes on everywhere, but I would say that was the saddest part of my life; living through my parent’s divorce. When they actually divorced I was twelve. Things had gone on for a while. My dad owned a fuel oil company; heating oil. Later on, I think he owned a gas station and some other things. 

My father remarried and had other children that were treated different, in my perspective. But guess what? On down the line, before his death, me and him, you know forgiveness is important. We had a great relationship and we were adults. I think he saw [in] retrospect that maybe he didn’t live his life the way he should have. I felt a lot better about it as I grew older. 

I just think there’s richness here. This is where a lot of things began. There wouldn’t be country music if it weren’t for the immigrants and people that were here in Southwest Virginia that started all of that. You see Riverdance in Ireland; that’s cloggin’ okay? I think [people] need to see that is part of American culture just as much our history as anything that went on with the Mayflower and New York City. It started here. These were the first pioneers and they did everything themselves. 

I don’t know how to do anything anymore, but my mother, she could cook, can, whatever it was, she knew how to do it. Some of that’s been lost generation to generation. I didn’t [grow up on a farm] but my grandparents had a farm, [and] I did grow up in the country. We had gardens and we had blackberry bushes. We crawled in the woods and we hunted them and that kind of thing. 

I wouldn’t complain about my life. 

I’m married and have two children and five grandchildren. All those are good things, but probably the thing I’m the proudest of is my oldest daughter is now a nurse practitioner; she’s one step away from being a doctor. My other daughter is in school to be a veterinarian tech. My grandchildren are bright. My daughters were scholars and they made wonderful grades and went on to higher education. 

I didn’t get to, but that’s another story. I’d liked to maybe have had an early education. I wouldn’t want to trade my marriage or my kids or anything for all of that; but if I could have found a way to add it in.”

Olivia Denton

Olivia Denton, Marina Manager; Bristol, VA:

"I grew up in Denton’s Valley, which is in Sullivan County, Tennessee, technically a part of Bristol, Tennessee.

I grew up as the oldest of four kids. My momma and daddy have been married for forty years. We grew up on a small farm. We always had either cows or pigs, or both. From the time I can remember, we grew up outdoors in the garden and raising tobacco. Play time was spent in the creek, running through the woods, building forts and building dams. We grew up knowing how to work, and how to work hard, and how to play, and how to play hard and knowing the joy and value of family. 

So what makes [Appalachia] special to me [more] than anything is because of where I grew up, and the limited means of my family growing up. We spent most of our time together as kids, my siblings and I. My family was always together. We learned very quickly that we would depend on each other above anybody else and that I always would be able to depend on them no matter what. I think that is a unique thing in growing up this way and in growing up in this area. I know other families that grew up the same way, and then beyond that family unit, you could depend on other families that were like you. It is a sense of not only a very compact and close family unit, but then a very compact and close community as well.

Appalachian people are very honest and are a very talented type of people. I think we are misunderstood, and some of our nuances are mistaken as lack of intellect. But definitely I think that is a misconception. There are a lot of talents and a lot of down home common sense that is characteristic of Appalachian culture, but we get very misunderstood.

[Media Portrayal] Just because of the way I talk, they’re gonna expect me to be as dumb as a brick. But that’s not true. Many of the smartest people I have ever known, if they go away from here they are going be expected to be unintelligent just because of how we speak. I think how we speak is very unique and I think it sounds great and when you walk away from here, people always want to hear it. But the media does tend to look for a way to portray us in that misconception. They look for those of the Appalachian culture who may almost concrete that misconception. But. the media’s job is to attract the listeners and viewers and they do that by being sensational.

I get homesick [when I vacation]. I get homesick! I wouldn’t call myself well-traveled, but I would call myself traveled. I have been in Mexico; I have been in the Upper North East, United States. I have been into Canada and spent some time in L.A. My best friend and I grew up here from sixth grade on, and were raised very similarly and the track of her life took her all over the country and she has lived in many different places and I have visited her. I always enjoy going to see different places and seeing how different people live. I‘ve never wanted to go and stay away. I always wanted to come home. I love it here. It is a relief, almost. to get home.

I would say in a lot of ways I’m still a hillbilly. I think it’s just a way of being. People call you country. I grew up being known as a mountain kid more so than a hillbilly. I just think there are characteristics of that; things that are important and things that are not important to you. I am not real concerned about clothing, or I am not real concerned about having my nails painted, but by the same token I am real concerned about family and I am real concerned about hard work and I am real concerned that people perceive me as being honest and trustworthy and determined. 

I think it is more how I want my characteristic and my personality winds up being perceived. As a mountain kid, what that really means to me is just that those things that were ingrained in me as a kid that are still there. I was taught the value of family that they are a priority, and the value of God and church and the places that those things have in your life and that those are still there. I can dress up and go sit down and eat with a dignitary and do just fine, but my heart and spirit is still a mountain kid.

I am very much into fitness. I go to the gym five or six days a week. I got very deeply involved in nutrition and working out and, you know, part of being a mountain kid, and part of being a country girl, is you eat that way and eventually that tells on you. So I went to work on that. 

I like anything with a motor. Growing up, I always liked cars and I always liked motorcycles and those kind of things. As an adult, I spend time with my toys. I have a big old jacked up Jeep that I like to run around in, and I have a souped up Mustang that I really enjoy and I ride a motorcycle. 

I grew up watching my dad race motorcycles. He always had one, and he was always taking us kids for a ride with him on one. That’s how I got interested in motorcycles, and to this day, he loves ‘em. He has a couple of Harleys, himself. My momma had her own motorcycle and rode it as a sixteen year old rather than a car. I think it’s just something about growing up around it that made me interested in it. What kept me interested in it, to me, it’s a freedom thing. You ride a motorcycle, and if [you] ride it up here in those mountains, and when you go around those curves, it’s a freedom thing. You feel like you are flying and dancing at the same time. On a motorcycle, you are completely alone if you want to be. You stick your helmet on, you can put music in or not put music in and you are in nothing but your head and that’s a lot of times a relief.

One of my brothers has a ‘57 Chevy that he’s been working on, restoring for a lot of years and eventually, he’ll get it done. My other brother, he is all the time building some sort of Jeep or Samurai just to go out and get in the mud. Both of my brothers are interested [in cars] but not my sister so much.
Primarily, the first thing I would say is, don’t listen to the way that I talk, listen to what I say.

My momma had been sick for a long time; she has had problems for as long as I can remember. It is heartbreaking to watch a parent to not be in good health. My mamaw passed away a few years ago and I was very close with her and I miss her every day. She was part of who ingrained all that in me. You know, I wish she was here to see me now.

She was feisty. That was probably the best word to describe her. If she got a knock at the door and didn’t know who she was expecting, she would meet them with a shotgun and she wasn’t afraid to run them off with it. She was the epitome of independence. My grandfather who would have been her husband, passed away before I ever even was born. She had a son with Down’s syndrome that she took care of until the day that he passed away. And she did it by herself. Like I said, she just was the epitome of courage and independence and determination. 

Her name was Flossie Martin. She taught us how to make biscuits. She was a lot of fun. At the same time, she didn’t allow a great amount of nonsense. She wasn’t great on whoopin’ us but, like for example, if I spent the night with her, if I wouldn’t stay in the bed she’d tell me some ghost story about a ghost being under the bed, to make sure I’d stay in the bed. So, she had her ways of making sure that you did what you were supposed to do.

My story probably is not anything uncommon; a lot of people have to start over in life repeatedly. My family grew up as a construction family. My dad has always worked in construction and he started his own company back in ’96 and both my brothers and I worked for him. I worked full time for him for fourteen years and figured I always would. 

Then, of course, everybody is probably familiar with the housing market crash that occurred a few years ago. A good deal of what I did for him was involved in housing. So when that housing bubble burst, my job with my family then had to go. No longer was the company able to support a fulltime Office person/Residential Project Manager. So I had to start completely over. 

I did a few things on my own. I owned a couple of businesses during that point and I have climbed back up to here, to the Marina. I feel like that is a huge accomplishment to go from basically being laid off and changing careers almost completely and now being here, managing this beautiful place.

The Marina has over 600 slips. There is the rental of the slips to the clientele. We also have a ships store that I manage which is more of a retail type of activity. I’m also involved in managing the restaurant that we have down here. It’s a big customer service business and we are down here right on South Holston Lake year round. I get the best of both worlds. I get to use my talents that I’ve developed over time in management and also be outside in the mountains. 

For a mountain girl it is the perfect setup."