Samantha Buckler

“We aren’t making it big. We aren’t rich, but we do what we have to do to get by and make it the best for our family.”

Samantha Buckler, Works at Family’s Swimming Pool Business; Greenup, Kentucky:

“I work for my grandparents. They’ve owned a swimming pool business for twenty-six years. I’ve pretty much been there all my life, and I just really can’t imagine working anywhere else. 

What I can recall [about my childhood], it definitely didn’t include electronics, like kids have nowadays. I mean, I had a computer, but it was dial-up, so who wanted to wait on that? I played spotlight that was a big thing. One person has a flashlight, and everybody else goes and hides, and you have to find that person just with the spotlight. It was really fun. 

That’s what my entertainment was, and also just looking at the stars. There’s not very many lights at night, so you definitely have the stars. I remember looking at the airplanes, [and] just the other day, we saw the space station, which I’ve never seen until the other day. That was really cool to see. 

[In high school] I was really big into softball and golf. Sports was basically my life in high school [but] I quit, when I was in Junior year. I guess I became a rebel. (Laughs) Didn’t want to do that anymore. 

What makes [Appalachia] special for me is everybody has a big heart. I know everybody pretty much in this town. I couldn’t imagine just living in a big city, not knowing everybody. When I walk down the street, I can say, ‘Hi,’ to everybody. Just like across [these people are] basically like family. (Pointing) They own a kitchen, and then right over here, she cuts my hair. And then my bank’s right there. Everything is right here. I couldn’t imagine it being any other way.

[My grandparents have] run this business since I can remember. I spend a lot of time with them. They do a lot for me [and] I really appreciate them. I obviously have more than one set of grandparents. All my grandparents do a lot for me. If I was to move anywhere else, I would not be surrounded by family like I am. 

When I was younger, my mom was a schoolteacher’s aide, and then she also worked for my grandparents. She still does accounting for my grandparents. My dad and my mom got divorced when I was little, and he ventured his own way. He owns a swimming pool business, as well. Surprisingly, they are not rivals, even though it’s a small town. He does more of in ground, and we do more of above ground. We actually help each other out. 

The most difficult thing I had to go through was when [they] divorced. My dad had to sign his rights over to me, (struggles with tears) so I got adopted. I did not meet my dad and really get to know him until I was eighteen years old. That’s definitely the most difficult thing. 

He was [always] on the outside. He would come to my softball games, and he would be out there, and I didn’t know he was there, but he was. We’re very close [now] He lives ten minutes up the road. He loves [my son] who is his pride and joy. This little boy is definitely blessed with a lot of grandparents! 

[My mom] works with me out here every single day. I don’t know one hundred percent what happened there, but I’m a big believer that everything happens for a reason. So there’s a reason. 

I might be a redneck or hillbilly, in my view, but it’s not what everybody else thinks. We wear shoes. We have teeth. We have big hearts. There might be rednecks in this world that live a different life than we do, but I’m sure they still have a big heart. They’re still normal people. A lot of people just don’t think we’re normal. 

[I considered leaving] at one point. I went to Ohio University for electronic media and I would have had to travel to Huntington, which is like forty-five minutes, if I really wanted to work for a news station. A lot of people in this area, even me, say, ‘this town is a crap hole. I want to get away.’ As soon I got out of high school, I tried to stay around, and some part of me wanted to go. I moved to Lexington, which is only two hours away, but it’s a city. I had a contract for twelve months to stay there in my apartment, and I stayed there nine. My grandparents offered for me to come work for them, and I knew that I needed to be here for them. 

I feel like they need me, and I really just couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. What I would tell other people is if you want to come somewhere where you know you can get to know everybody and be welcomed, this is the place to be. You can go anywhere and know everybody, and that’s what I like about it. You can even go uptown, which is Ashland. It’s like twenty minutes away. It’s considered kind of a city around here. But, you normally know a lot of people there, too.

At one point, I had a bigger dream. When I visited New York for the first time, I had this weird thing, like I wanted to move there. I [literally] just went there, and I wanted move. I couldn’t ever do it. Even when I was pretending that I want to move, I could never do it.

I’ve been outside the United States. I’ve been very blessed with being able to travel. My grandparents have always wanted me to see the world. I’ve been to all kinds of places, Mexico, all down in the Caribbean but I really love just traveling the U.S. There are so many beautiful places that nobody has even seen. I like to kayak. That’s kind of my thing lately. You can see places [kayaking] that people don’t see every day. 

I do love to travel, but I always want to come back home. Even though I do like to see everything, I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else, and not being able to come back. I’ve got a lot of family here. I have a really big group of friends, and instead of friends, they’re more like family. If I were anywhere else, I definitely wouldn’t have that. 

My happiest time is definitely him. (Hugs her son). I was young when I had him. Not real young, I wasn’t sixteen or anything, I was twenty-three, but to a lot of people that is young. In this area, it’s not, but I feel like in bigger cities, people have bigger dreams other than just having a kid, but my dream was to have a kid, and to experience life with him. His name is Holden Buckler. He’s three years old. [My husband] works as a merchandiser for Pepsi. 

There’s always these people who make it really, really big. You wonder how they got there. Some people just fall into place there. You wonder, ‘Why why can’t I do that? Why am I not special?’ I just want people to know me as a good person. I don’t want to be a drama starter, or anything like that. I don’t feel like I am, but you never know what other people think of you. I just want to be a good person for my son, and my family. 

I’ll live here all my life. I can’t see raising him anywhere else. I don’t want him to depend on video games, or electronics, or staying inside all the time. Where we live, he can pretty much go outside and play, and me not have to keep an eye on him 24/7. I just can’t imagine him not being able to go outside and play. Another thing I really like about this area, compared to a city life is I really enjoy hunting. I think it’s something that we need to enjoy and experience. We depend on a lot of people to survive. I don’t know if the time actually came where we had to depend on ourselves to survive, a lot of people could do it. There’s all kinds of things to learn about being able to survive on your own, but I feel like if that time ever came, I could actually do it. I wouldn’t be afraid to take my gun and do what I had to do to survive. I wouldn’t want to kill anybody else, but I’m talking about food-wise. 

I couldn’t imagine killing another person. I feel like in a city they wouldn’t be afraid to kill others to survive. Around here, we would come together and help each other to do what we had to do. We would start our own little tribe maybe, and one person go out and hunt for the day. My great grandparents had a farm and they raised their own food. They did what they had to do to live day-to-day, and that’s kind of what we’re doing here. We aren’t making it big. We aren’t rich, but we do what we have to do to get by and make it the best for our family. 

I like photography. I own a small photography business. It’s not nothing major. I really like portrait photography and I also like to photograph nature; anything that the eye sees. I don’t want to have a fake view of life; I like what real life is. Kind of like what you all [Humans of Central Appalachia] are doing here.

My grandfather’s dad was a guitar builder, and then my grandpa built guitars. My grandfather, he built a guitar, and I don’t know if you know who Keith Whitley is, [but] he sold Keith Whitley one of his first guitars. He lives just down the road from me. I’m very musically uninclined. (Laughs) Something skipped a generation with me. I don’t know if that was part of not being raised around that part of my family, but my dad, my brother, even my sister, they all could do it. I just can’t learn. Maybe one day it will hit me, but at least I’m surrounded by it. I really enjoy going and sitting by the campfire and listening to my family play music. Mainly country, bluegrass, and the old stuff. Nothing new.

People tell their stories by music, and it comes from the heart. [Guitars are beautiful] They are. They put their heart and soul into it. My grandfather has several that he has built. I’m sure one day one of them will get passed down to me. My great-grandfather worked with several famous people. There’s a lot of people in this area know of him, Charlie Parsons. And then my grandfather just took it along. He had a little store right by his house that he would build and sell guitars. He does it now, but he don’t have a store, it’s just kind of by word. Somebody says, ‘Oh, yeah, Mike Parsons, he builds guitars.’ They know who they’re talking about, and they go to him. Even my dad, he knows how to do all that. 

I hope [my son] will learn to play. He really enjoys it. He was playing this morning. He don’t know nothing, but he just pretends and plays, and I guess that’s where it all starts.”

Dock Frazier

“Pine Mountain is the second highest place in the state of Kentucky, and it’s as steep as a cow’s face.”

Dock Frazier, Pastor & Owner, KC Barns (Kingdom Come Barns), Vendor, Letcher County Farmers’ Market; Kingdom Creek, Outside of Whitesburg, Kentucky:

“I was raised on Cowan Creek, which is right from Kingdom Come. Most of our folks were agricultural, and so my brother and I grew up being my dad’s farm hands. We raised sustenance; corn, beans, potatoes and tomatoes and all of those kinds of things. We grew up in that kind of environment. We most always had horses and cows and chickens and pigs. 

Our neighborhood was also our play area. We’d get together and sometimes there would be ten, twelve of us guys, and our favorite playing place was over at the barn. We grew up playing around the same areas that we used as our work areas, as well.

When I began in grade school around the late fifties, most of our communities had a local school. For my family, it was about a mile and we walked back and forth to school every day, summer and winter. There was three rooms, first and second grade in one, third and fourth and fifth in another, sixth, seventh and eighth in another. By the time we were almost finished with grade school, we had a consolidated school and all that began to change, and we got bussed. But was my education area, and it was really cool. 

Harding Ison spent almost his entire teaching career there at that school. He taught first through the eighth, all of them, in one building, one room on Kingdom Come Creek. And his students excelled in business and professionalism. It’s amazing the number of people that came out of that environment that went on to do really well. Every day, he taught eight grades [all in different rooms]. We had spelling bees and arithmetic matches and the different little schools would get together and have a basketball tournament, so almost once a week we would have an interaction with another little school. [Harding Ison] was telling me he was doing a spelling bee and he called on this guy and he said, ‘How do you spell sheep?’ And the little guy got excited when he was called on, [and all he could say was], ‘sheepity sheep.’ He just thought that was so funny.

High school was centralized here in Letcher County and it was a little bit of a transition. Six miles out of town and we felt really rural and the guys who lived in town were, you know, city kids. I look at that now and it’s interesting that we could make those kind of divisions, but at that point we did feel that way. There was a difference [in the way we were treated] and a stigma associated with that. 

I was the oldest of five kids in a small house, so I went right to work after high school. My junior and senior years in high school, we had Distributive Education [and] I worked forty hours a week for Food Town Super Market and went to school. Our teacher, Bennet Welch, was a really good teacher. We didn’t just have the opportunity to work and earn some money. We got opportunities to grow in marketing understanding, [and] we got some really good practical experience. That was a blessing to me early in my life, because I’ve always been engaged in selling. [As a pastor I feel I’m still selling] I’ve just got the best product!

People in this area migrated north. One of the things we export in this area is our people. There were no real job opportunities, and our people migrated to industrial jobs. Labor Day weekend, Memorial Day weekend, Fourth of July weekend, those were really special weekends. Our people would get those long weekends off, and they would come home, and they would gather at my grandmother’s house. Families were larger then [and] sometimes there would be thirty plus of us around. There would be a bunch of kids and grandkids out playing and doing all that stuff, but even at a young age, I preferred being around where all of the older guys were. 

My grandmother was a storyteller, and I loved those stories. I did shows for years, musical stuff, and I incorporated some of her stories into my shows. I produced a concept album called Stonega Run in 1996. It’s stories and songs from, and about, this area. People in our area had to make a trip to Stonega, Virginia because that was the nearest railhead. Anything they couldn’t raise or make for themselves meant that trip to get stoves and shoes and anything that they could order from Sears and Roebuck. They would always go loaded both ways; they’d take things they produced from the farm to sell and barter over there when they’d get to Big Stone Gap or Stonega, and then they would buy the things they needed over there and have to haul [it back]. Pine Mountain is the second highest place in the state of Kentucky, and it’s as steep as a cow’s face. It lies on a fault line and it’s the north side of the mountain, so it’s a tremendous wagon trip. They would cross Pine Mountain and then Black Mountain, which is the highest point in the state of Kentucky. The concept album is all about people, places and things along this trip. 

Stonega is a name of a community over in Virginia. Some of them would call it Ega. My grandmother’s name was Atha but nobody ever called her Atha, they would call her Athy. My other grandmother was named Sarah and they called her Saray. We misspelled everything because we spelled it the way we heard it. 

[My grandmother was] always was cooking and preparing and serving. Our family provided beans and corn and potatoes and sweet potatoes; we grew all that stuff. My grandmother would inevitably wind up with ten, fifteen of us grandkids, gathered around her and she’d tell us scary stories until we was afraid to go to sleep by ourselves. She told a lot of Jack Tales.

She had strong character; worked all of her life, raised a family and her husband passed away relatively early and she was on her own. When she first went on her own, she had no kind of income and she made homemade things like needlework, doilies, quilts, baby blankets and large [quilts], too. She sold them and generated enough for her to live. 

I do think [the Appalachian culture] is special. In fact, I know that it’s special. I went as an eighteen-year- old to Cincinnati, Ohio and got my first job in a plastic factory, and that was a tremendous culture shock for me. I think a lot of people might have done this; we’re grown up and we just can’t wait, we’re going to get out of here and we’re gonna go somewhere and do some big thing. Some time out, I realized how special this area is, and how special our culture and our people are. I worked for the Appalshop Filmmakers for a number of years. I used to do sound for some of their documentaries, and in doing that I worked with a wonderful man named Andy Garrison. He taught me about sound. Back in those days, it was analog and a lot different than today, but he taught me how to professionally gather sound and I did that for a number of years as an interest/profession. I’ve always had fifteen irons in the fire at the same time, so this was just one of the things I did. I lasted [in Cincinnati] for about two years, and that was about a year longer than I wanted to.

Andy Garrison awakened me to the idea that Kingdom Come, right in my own back yard, is a special place. When the earliest settlers begin to [arrive] in this area in the early 1800s, my family was some of those that settled there. I live on the same land that was first settled in the early 1800s. My great-grandfather had this particular piece of land, but I live on a 190-acre farm over there on the same land that he originally began to build and develop and make a farm out of. [There are] so many stories about how neighbors help neighbors, and if you were building a barn they’d have a barn building and everybody would come around, and they would have a square dance on Saturday night and everybody would have fun together. 

That was the kind of environment that my grandmother grew up in. She passed a lot of that on to us as grandkids in the way of her stories. These days, we have televisions and computers and we’re so engaged we can’t even walk across the road without our cell phones in our pocket. They had none of that, so when they got together they did this most awesome thing…they sat and talked. They were interactive socially, they worked hard, but they always had time. [If] a neighbor passed by, they would sit down on their front porch and drink a cup of coffee and share and it was just part of their lifestyle. 

We are doing this farm project, ‘Grow Appalachia.’ We need to redevelop it and maybe help more people understand our heritage. I farmed for a number of years for some local stores and restaurants, so this is not my first experience in raising produce and farm raised products for market. More and more people are trying to get back to food grown in their local areas and not so much processed food. In our area, so many times we’re a little bit slow about coming to that, but we’re developing.

Once upon a time, I used to be a Scouting Location Management person for the film industry. I was registered in Frankfort. Believe it or not, we have a commission of films there. I worked on a really cool project. It was a music video of singer Karen Tobin for CMT. Her song was called, Carolina Smokey Moon, and [they] wound up in eastern Kentucky shooting all the shots. I got to be the Scouting Location Manager. Some of those guys really respected the people, and that’s how Larry Boothby was, the guy who was producing this video. He was awesome and wonderful to work with.

This may be getting too personal, [but] Steven Segal’s group came in here to shoot Fire Down Below. I got contacted and hired to do the scouting location. I worked for those guys for three days, and I said I would not represent you to our people for nothing under this sun because they did not respect our people; they just wanted what they wanted. 

The problem with the filmmakers so many times, [is] they’ll drive right by fifteen other environments to go to the one horrible looking environment. I decided a long time ago, if you wasn’t gonna represent our area for the fullness [it offers], I didn’t want to be a part of it.

I have been a pastor for sixteen years. I got saved, and that was a radical transformation for me. I [discovered] you can spend a lifetime trying to help make and bring changes that would be beneficial for the area, and maybe not feel like you got that far. I realized that if I really wanted to make a difference for these people, the first thing I needed to do was lay on to a relationship with Christ. God touched my heart about that. You can almost see [my church] from here. It’s Faith Community Church. It’s the old Food Town Supermarket where I worked my Junior and Senior year in high school. It’s amazing how those circles work. We got 250 people thereabouts on our church roll. It’s non-denominational.

My great-uncle Henry Ison lived on the property I live on now. One of the things they said of him was he could take a little bail wire and a couple of screwdrivers [and make what he needed]. They couldn’t run to the shop every time they needed something. They were very creative, and they knew how to make this thing work. My dad was very creative mechanically. He would walk into a store and see things he liked and then he’d say, ‘But you know I could make that stronger and better if I did this.’ The guy who owned Doug Frazier, would look at my dad and say, ‘Look at it Paw, and go home and build you one.’ [Dad would then] go home and make one. I grew up in that environment. I’m not that mechanically oriented. Somehow I didn’t get that part, but we’ve always learned how to take what we’ve got and make do with it, and arrange it and work with it until we can make it happen.

My hobbies have always been something that I’m oriented to. I played music for a number of years and woke up every morning with a guitar in my hand and went to bed every night with a guitar in my hand and I drove my wife crazy. I have an obsessive personality, so when am into it, I’m into it. Currently my pastoral responsibilities are always first with me, and will always be that way. 

[I love my farm] My aunt lived on the farm where I’m at for fifty years on the same piece of land with the same man. They knew that I would be the one that would come there and be the steward of that place when she would go. She told me, ‘honey this land has always provided a living for whoever has been here, and it will do that for you.’

I’m an animal lover. I raise Labs and Goldens and Poodles and Golden Doodles and Labradoodles. I had two litters, and we’re down to two puppies left, but I have some new ones coming. I love puppies, and that’s the only way I can figure out how to have puppies, and then have them again. 

I’ve reintroduced myself to this land. I’ve always had goats and sheep and chickens and dogs, now I am raising eggs and produce. This is my first year to do this, but again, I have some background there. I hope by next year I’m going be one of the suppliers at our school system from this piece of land, and doing that same thing that our people have always done. What a blessing for me. I am maturing and my opportunities for doing these things are diminishing so I am very blessed to be able to come back to that place where my ancestors were, and be in touch with that land.

You’d better believe [I’m a hillbilly]! When I went to Cincinnati they said, ‘you’re not a hillbilly, you’re a briar hopper.’ That’s what they call Kentuckians [and] that’s what they called me when I worked there, a little briar hopper. To me I was never a briar hopper I was always a hillbilly. So many of our people were not formally educated, but boy, they were very practical; capable, talented, and wise people that are in many ways, underappreciated.”

I’m named for my grandfather, who died a year before I was born. He was a true entrepreneur. Over the years he logged and had coalmines and a grocery store. He went to central Indiana and raised cattle toward the end of his life, which was something he loved. He took what people thought was swamp land and did some very simple things, like installing drainage, to make it very productive farm land. Some people around here call it Jack-Of-All-Trades. I sort of have done that in my life. I had a little short musical career. I have always owned businesses. And then, the pastoral work that I have done for the last sixteen years, that’s the most important thing. 

[A local family had] lost two sons over a short period of time. I was sharing with a lady in this family who knew my family. John D. Ison, my grandmother’s brother, was a Regular Baptist pastor and she said, ‘honey it didn’t matter what was going on, John D. could be planting his field and you come and say John D. we need you, and he would drop what he was doing and come to you.’ I hope I have a little bit of that; when my people are in need and they call on me I will be there for them. I hope I would be remembered a little bit for that. 

I hope to contribute to our farmer’s market and reestablish our people being productive from their own land. I’d like to be a part of that. I guess I’ll be remembered for doing a little bit of everything over the years. 

I have been blessed in my life that the kind of people I have encountered would look at me and say, ‘with a little bit of help, this guy could do thus and such.’ Long before I ever surrendered to being a pastor, a couple of local pastors used to tell me, ‘Dock, you’ve got the heart God’s looking for, for our local people.’ I have been blessed to have a lot of people in my path that’s helped direct me from place to place along the way.”

Chelsey Sims

“I really don’t care how we’re stereotyped. I’m proud that I let my kid get her feet dirty. I’m proud that I have chickens and gardens and plan on getting cattle and sheep next spring. I’m not one bit embarrassed by it.” 

Chelsey Sims, Nurse Practitioner, SOMC; Greenup County, Kentucky:

“The culture here is completely different than any city or town I’ve ever been to. I went away for four years for college in Morehead and even that change is completely different than just little, tiny Greenup County. {Here] you know everybody, and there’s never a stranger you meet. You can walk down the streets and you’re going know somebody at some point. I like that. I feel like hard work was instilled in all of us, and that’s what I want to teach my kids. That’s why I’m never leaving!

As a kid, I danced, which is funny for a country girl. I enjoy it and I miss it, but you get a little older, and you can’t do it anymore. It was fun to escape a little bit. I also enjoyed being outside and hanging with my brother and doing things like that. 

I live in Argillite, which is maybe ten minutes away. We live on East Fork River or Little Sandy River, those two rivers connect right behind our house. We had a boat dock that went out to the river. And by river I mean like, fifty foot across, not as big as the Ohio. I never really got to play on the Ohio River. But growing up on the East Fork and the Little Sandy River was a lot of fun. We had a lot of good times down there fishing and swimming and swinging. I always joke and say it was like a country music video. Like what all those people pretended to do, that’s what we really did growing up. 

My grandmother is my hero. I’m going cry now. I get all excited about her. She’s taught me how to be strong, she’s taught me hard work, and that even though you’re from little ol’ pinpoint, Greenup County, you can still be successful. She’s taught me how to can, she’s taught me how to garden. She’s taught me all of the things that I feel like my generation skipped. I’m twenty-eight, so the people I grew up with, a lot of them want to leave and want to go to big cities like Lexington. I never had that desire because of her. Hard work! That’s it. I love this place. My grandpa worked for CSX, a railroad system. He’s a good Christian man, kind and gentle. Tiny! I’m probably bigger than him. [He’s a] good person, he makes me feel like I’m very special. 

Goodness yes, my grandma gardens! Even today, we’ll call each other and compare broccoli. ‘Is your broccoli coming up?’ She’ll call me and say I’m out of jars, I need you to bring me a box of my jars, because of course all my life I’ve stole jars off of her. I’ve never bought jars. I feel like the whole self-sustainability thing is what my family is all about whether it is my husband and my daughter or my grandparents. That’s what I get excited about; I can provide for myself, and she’s taught me that. I’m not as good at it as she is, of course, but she’s had quite a bit of practice. She grows honey select corn only! That’s the only kind you can grow, honey select. Tomatoes, cucumbers, you know the basics. Potatoes. They grew up doing tobacco. My Mom was raised stripping tobacco, and they kind of fizzled that out after I started getting a little older. I never had to do hands-on tobacco, but I can remember the smell of it when I was a kid, [and] my grandmaw and grandpaw stripping tobacco and selling it. That was cool. I miss that. Now all the regulations and stuff, it’s like, is it even worth it? And they’re getting older. There’s really no need for that anymore. 

My Mom is my number one fan, the reason that I am who I am today. I went through nursing school, which I feel like is one of the hardest things you can ever do, and if it wasn’t for her to support me and push me...It was never a choice IF I was going to college, it was WHERE are you going to college. That was my choice. She’s wants me to do well and sit back and let me get all the glory, versus her saying look what my kid did. She’s a good grandmaw to my little one. She lives right next door, because that’s just how you’re raised around here. We all live side-by-side. I have two dads. I have a biological dad who is a very successful person. He’s a nurse as well. We joke and say we went to nursing school together. He’s a good guy. I have a stepdad that raised me from the time I was four; I call him Daddy, too. My stepdad’s a good man to come in and raise a kid. He was young, he was 24 or 24 when he came into my life. He’s my dad and my daughter’s Papaw. 

[When I’m away I miss] Kindness and courtesy, simple thank you’s when you hold open doors for people. I think a lot of times when you’re in the city, people [have a] one-track mind. They’ve got blinders on. Not that they’re self-centered, but that’s just how they were raised; to do whatever task it is at hand versus helping someone along the way. You walk down the streets in California or Louisville or wherever and they’re going walk right by you. You walk down the streets in Greenup and they’re like, ‘Hey, how are ya? Good to see you!’ 

We’re very close as a community. When one person has a problem in the community, it’s the entire community’s problem. That’s really every little town, not just Greenup, every little town in Appalachia. We come together as a team, versus if you were just one of the millions in the big city, then you’re one of millions, not one of a community. I really don’t care how we’re stereotyped. I’m proud that I let my kid get her feet dirty. I’m proud that I have chickens and gardens and plan on getting cattle and sheep next spring. I’m not one bit embarrassed by it. 

What does irritate me though, is that people think we’re stupid or uneducated. That’s not true. I think that happens everywhere. Some people chose to not go on and get a further education and not be as successful as they can be. That’s everywhere! That’s not just here. I don’t know, maybe it’s our accents they think we’re stupid. I’m happy if my corn’s successful in the fall. I think success is having your family close and having good relationships with family and community. Success is definitely measured differently here, than in the big city. I think success in the big city is how much money you make. I wouldn’t care how much money I made as long as my kids are happy and my family’s happy and we’re making our bills. That’s all that matters. 

We’re good people. We’re kind. We are smart! We might not talk ‘right’, but we sure can write it. I think they’re missing out. People that have never come here and never have given this country life a chance, If they could come here for one weekend, they’d probably never leave. I think we’re lucky. 

Scarlett, my daughter, she’s two and a half and she means everything to me. Gosh, you’re going to make me all emotional again like chick! It’s fun because I get to re-live life. The first time she put her feet on the grass, makes you feel like you’re doing it, too. Taking her to the zoo is so much more fun because she gets to do it, and I get to do it, and I get to live it through her. What did I do with my time [before her]? Now, she’s obviously very mobile, and very fast and very dangerous. How do we get anything done now, and why didn’t we get it all done three years ago? Why was my house a mess three years ago? I have no idea. 

(Interests and hobbies) Farming. I’m not like some big, huge farmer, but maybe small farming. Mini-farming. Right now, we are clearing out about three acres. My Dad’s giving us some sheep and then we’re getting some cattle in the spring and I’m really excited about that. We’ve got chickens and quail and all that. Scarlett really enjoys that too, gathering eggs every day. That’s our main excitement. 

My brother can play anything you hand him. He can play the drums, the piano, the guitar, the mandolin. He can play on a fiddle, whether he’s good at it or not I don’t know. He can play the banjo. It makes me happy that he can do all those things that say, someone that’s not from here would never want to pick up a mandolin. Why would you do that? That’s not cool. Our Pap, my Papaw, he’s very musically inclined. He’s our music center; he’s where it all started. My uncles play music. My Pap plays bluegrass or gospel, but my uncles will play old country, and when I say old I mean like sixties and seventies, which is probably not really old. But now my brother, he likes eighties country. He definitely does not like today’s country. He says it’s not country and I get that. My brother will play any type of genre; he’s not just country. I don’t think he’s very country, honestly. But yeah my Pap he’s the one that got us all started, he gave us all the rhythm. I’m not good, but I’ll play it. I used to be able to play the piano; I could probably still play on it a little. I sure couldn’t play a whole song or nothing like that. I like to sing with my brother and his friends. I’m not some big super star, but it’s fun. 

I drug my husband up here from the city. He’s from downtown Louisville. He’s never going back, so we ain’t a leaving. It’s fun (visiting Louisville) and I enjoy his family. It’s fun to go to cool restaurants and stuff, but I would never want to live there. No offense to them. It’s totally different. My husband works in California right now, and I went out there to spend a week or so with him and I was glad to spend time with him, but I was ready to come home. It’s just a different mentality. 

My husband is a hard worker, a kind man. He’s from the city, but he’s a transplant. He travels [and] he’s only home like two days a week, which stinks. When he’s home, we try to make the best of it and we try to get all of our work done in two days. He is a nurse as well, but he also works on computers. He builds computer documentation systems for large hospitals. He’s actually finishing up this week with Stanford in California. He’s been there for fifteen months. He was in Hawaii for six or seven months right after Scarlett was born, and that was not a bad gig. I went and loafed for a couple months. Honestly, I felt like the Hawaiian culture [while] it was a lot different from country, how kind and open and thoughtful that they were [made] it felt more like home than anywhere else I’ve been. They were really nice people. 

(On her husband adapting to Appalachian culture) The language! (laughs) We’ll still joke about stuff I’ll say today and he’s like what? What are you even talking about? He thinks that me saying ‘it’s pouring the rain’ is the funniest thing he’s ever heard. His family does the same thing. They’ll joke on me. I call the the linens that you put on beds, bedclothes. He thinks that’s hilarious. We joke about what soup beans are. His idea of what soup beans are, he thinks it’s bean soup. I’m like, it’s not a soup. It’s totally different. 

I’m honestly not a beans and cornbread girl. I don’t like beans of any kind. I’m a minority. My favorite comfort foods are mashed potatoes and corn. Of course, honey select corn only that my grandma raises. That corn and some good mashed potatoes and any kind of meat with it. I don’t care if it’s meat loaf or steaks, anything. Mashed potatoes and corn? You can’t go wrong with that. 

Sure, sure (I’m a hillbilly). Hillbilly means, I think, hard work and determination. Overcoming any obstacle that’s presented to you. We live in a very poor economy obviously. It’s not like Greenup, Kentucky or Argillite, Kentucky are booming, by any means. Yet I have still somehow managed to go out and get my education that allowed me to go on and do bigger things than just sitting around hoping one day I’d do something good with my life. So, I think overcoming those obstacles that are naturally here. 

I’m afraid that we’re losing touch with what we used to be. I feel like all the people closer to my age, in their twenties and thirties, we’re not looking on how it used to be say when my grandmother was a kid. When your main goal was raise your garden, raise your farm. And then what’s next? Then go to your work or take care of your family or whatever. I feel like my buddies want to go out and party or move to the big city. What I’m afraid of is that’s going continue to fizzle. We’re going continue to lose what we’re all about here. The traditions are going to be gone. That’s what scares me, because that’s my favorite part about it. I would say most of the people that I went to high school with have never put their hand on a hoe in their life and have never put their hand on a rake. That scares me because if the whole world loses that, then what do you have? 

(I want to pass on to my daughter) family value. Like I said, we live house to house to house. I live by my mom and by my aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents, we all live right there together. I’m not saying I want her in my back yard, but I hope that she doesn’t want go on and move away and do all these different things. If she does, that’s okay. I just hope that maybe I instill that family value and what that means and why it’s okay to want to come back. That’s hard. You see these little, tiny, small mom and pop shops down the street and while they’re probably not in the red, I’m sure they’re not booming, because all these big corporations are coming in and taking over. That’s sad. Fifty years ago, this street would’ve been hopping on a Sunday and look at it. It’s quiet. 

I want my legacy to be kindness. I hope that people look at me and think, ‘she’s a good person.’ I hope that I raise my kid or kids to do that too. I guess my legacy will be my kids because that’s what you leave behind. What else do you leave behind? I hope people remember me and think wow, she was a giving and kind and honest person. And I hope that they can see that in my kids, too.”

Janet Kincer

“We had free run of the mountains, up and down the hollers barefoot, scraping the black top off our feet with alcohol and a butter knife at the end of the day.”

Janet Kincer, Co-Manager, Letcher County Farmers Market, Apple Tree Project; Crafts Collie, Kentucky:

“I was born and raised here and graduated high school here. I left and went two years to Hazard Community College and [then] and went to Lexington. I just moved back in December, after thirty years.

Growing up here was wonderful. I never felt restricted or hindered. I was blessed with a wonderful mother who never censored anything that I read, and always encouraged me to learn in any way possible. We had free run of the mountains, up and down the hollers barefoot, scraping the black top off our feet with alcohol and a butter knife at the end of the day. We had many friends and there was always family around. 

My mother would take a cast iron skillet and a few potatoes and onions and off we’d go up into the hills and build a little fire and fry them and eat them. My father was a coal miner, and my mother worked for the postal system. They split up when I was a freshman in high school. I think he broke an ankle one time in a little rock fall at the mines, but I’m not for sure. I remember him coming home black and dirty. He looked like everybody else’s Daddy, ‘cause everybody else’s worked in the mines. 

My great-grandmother had my grandmother out of wedlock. My grandmother got married young and had my mother. My mother got married young. They were very independent, strong, hard-working women, and the absolute glue of the family. My mother’s mother was from Pike County, from Beefhide. My Mommy’s Daddy was from Fleming/Neon. They both passed away by the time I was seven, but I remember the love and the closeness. 

My mom’s mother, especially, taught me love. She didn’t call us by our names she called us ‘Precious.’ She would never raise her voice. She would always make sure that my sister and I had Easter dresses and Easter shoes and Easter hats. She would come and give us little girls’ day and bathe us and powder us and fix our hair and pretty us up. [She would] make us feel special and then she’d want to take us somewhere. If nothing else, we’d walk down Front Street in Fleming Neon so everybody could see her pretty little granddaughters. 

My father’s father was an elder in the old Regular Baptist Church. He was very caring, very kind, considerate, loving and knowledgeable. He could teach you by showing you. He would tell you, but you learn so much more by showing. My father’s father was very understanding and very accepting. Even though my parents got divorced, he loved my mother dearly and loved his kids dearly. 

Living away from here was totally different. The people are not the same. I found out early on that unless you affiliated yourself with other people from Eastern Kentucky, there was no one that you could depend on. It’s like everyone had an ulterior motive. I had a pretty big epiphany about six years ago and I thought I needed to call someone. Even though I was married at the time, I didn’t feel comfortable with that, and I thought the closest person I could call was my best friend about an hour and a half away. That was a huge eye opening experience for me. I knew then that I really, really wanted to come home and that started my journey to get back. 

I always did come home, but my kids were grown and I could get to the point where I could come home more often. I would come home and I would camp, or I would stay with my brother or I would stay with a friend. It got to be every other weekend, and I ended up getting divorced and moved home in December. No job, no place to live. No plans. Just that I was coming home. I can’t describe the feeling I get. I go hike just about every morning on Pine Mountain, and it just feeds my soul. 

When I was young, town was bustling. The high school was up on the hill, every storefront was filled, and there were many cars. Even though unemployment was high for the whole state, it was low for here. I come back, and there are a few storefronts that are open in town, and it’s totally different. It’s kind of scary, but we’re a hard-working, resilient people and if we want to make it, we’re going to make it. If our economy is going to turn around we’re going to take care of it ourselves. 

(Cultural differences in Lexington vs. “home”) Here, we like to place everybody. It’s not an offensive thing; it’s not a ranking thing. We just want to know where you’re from, what group you’re from, who you belong to. It’s not like that [in Lexington]. Depending on people is almost non-existent. You have to be somewhat self-sufficient. You have to have your true inner circle of people that you can go to, and you may or may not have that closeness in relationships. If you were to break down on the side of the highway, no one would stop and help you. Here everyone would stop and help you and you knew it would be okay to take their help. 

[Appalachia is special because of] the people. A lot of it originally came from the isolationism. If we’re going to make it, we’ve got to make it on our own and take care of our own selves. There is a vastness of knowledge here that you don’t realize you have until you leave. You do something and people look at you and say, well, how do you know how to do that? And you’re like well, you just do! Don’t you do it that way? And they look at you like they have no idea. From raising a garden to animals, to self-sufficiency and taking care of your own home. When I first got divorced, I changed the locks on the door of my house, and my neighbor lady came over and just stood and stared at me. She asked, ‘what are you doing? I [told her I was] changing the locks, and she said, ‘where’d you learn to do that? I said, my mother, and she thought I was crazy. We have a sturdiness that I don’t think other people have and we value our people and our land more than most people do. 

Everybody thinks we’re all toothless, dumb, inbred, barefoot. We are some of the most intelligent people I have ever encountered in my life, because don’t just have book learning, we have common sense and we have learning that you just pick up in your lifestyle. Not all intelligence comes from universities. I’ve got two degrees, but I value my upbringing as a degree, also. The stereotypes are wrong and they’re very hurtful. We’re the only ones that it’s still okay to make fun of, and that’s wrong. I think it’s because people think that we’re dumb and we won’t catch it. 

I’ve written stories about coming home. It was overwhelmingly emotional, hoping that I could get home to do what I wanted to do and that it wasn’t too late. I had been coming home quite awhile and quite often, so I had more trouble leaving. Crying my way back down the Mountain Parkway. Knowing that I was here and I could stay if I wanted to. Knowing that I would be taken care of if I couldn’t take care of myself. I’m almost fifty-two years old and that’s a big step to do. It was a good thing. It was a real good thing. 

I’m a hillbilly in the best sense of the word. It means that I was raised right; I was raised with manners, I was raised with knowledge, I can dress up or dress down, I can go in the hills and stay three or four days and be okay, or you can dress me up and take me to a party and I’ll be okay. I feel like I have an immense knowledge of our plants, our food, and the people. The women of this culture are so very talented. They can cook, they can grow the garden, and then they can also work outside the home and a lot of them are single mothers. We’re very proud of our land; we’re very ingrained in our land. To have a draw to a place and not a person, you can’t explain it to anyone else. But there is a pull. Almost like a magnet that pulls you back here. This is where you’re from, this is where you belong, and this is where you should be. 

I worked for twenty years in a residential treatment facility in Lexington. Then I sold institutional groceries for about three years and then I was a cafeteria manager in an elementary school in Fayette County. Now, there is a huge grassroots movement to go back to local farming to feed the local economy and the local people. Everybody thinks that it’s a movement away from here, but it’s not. These are things that we knew, things that we were raised with. 

The Farmers’ Market has been wonderful, getting to know the farmers, talking about the different vegetables, how can we make it better for them. There are several vendors here that say, ‘I make my money in Letcher County and I’m going to spend my money in Letcher County.’ 

The Appletree Project is promoting healthier eating. We have healthy cooking classes. We have the water filtration systems in the high schools and the middle schools to promote more water drinking, more activity and healthier activities for the students. With fast foods and the processed foods and all the different supermarkets, we’ve gotten away from that healthier eating. Unfortunately, Eastern Kentucky is a pocket of bad health; obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease. 

We have to have more than one economic factor that’s going to feed this area. It can’t just be like coal was or like lumber was. The food movement is huge. Tourism is another thing that could be huge [as well as] cultural aspects from the music to the crafts. Not to turn it into a Gatlinburg or a Pigeon Forge, but to really promote and show what we, have and benefit our local people.

I remember going camping up on Pine Mountain and stripping off buck-naked and taking a shower under Bad Branch Falls. We didn’t realize how close it was from the bottom of the mountain because we’d come over the top of the mountain down from the top of the falls. There was this large group walking up from the bottom of the mountain, and we barely got our drawers on. Bad Branch Falls is majestic and enchanted. It’s a sixty-foot, natural waterfall and a gorge. I would advise anybody to go up it any time, but if you really want to see it roll, go up after, the old folks called it the spring floods, in April after it rains for a week or so. As soon as it stops raining go up the next day. They’re absolutely gorgeous. In Letcher County, go across Pine Mountain on 119, turn back to the left on 932, and go about a mile and a half down. 

I would hope that twenty years from now [this area] would be a pocket of cultural tourism. It would be wonderful to make it a little go-to place in the mountains. And in some ways it has! Whitesburg, it’s a happening thing! I mean you can get a beer and a tattoo in two places in town now! (Laughs) On the same day! And that’s not a bad thing.”