Family and Lifestyle Choices

It was January 2, 2012 and there we all were dressed in the new work out clothes we had received as a Christmas gift only a week ago.  Some of us were pounding away on treadmills; others running on a padded oval track; others walking at a fast pace; others chasing basketballs and shooting hoops. Some of us were aging couples; others were middle aged; and still others were young adults. I assumed the one thing we all had in common was overindulgence over the holidays and knowledge about the need to stay fit.  

One lady always carries her rather large purse as she walks the track; another brings along his caregiver to help him navigate his steps; other women and men have a friend walking along side them for conversation and some walk at fast paces while making odd gestures with their hands, arms, and mouths as they keep pace with the music pounding through their earphones. Although we differed in many ways we spent an hour or more together today trying to pick up where we left off a week or two ago before our Christmas journeys.  I was happy to be there sweating and doing my run because my pattern of running a mile each day is well learned and rehearsed.

At some point in today's routine I began to think of my father and what he would think and say about this scene if he were able to drop in today at the gym to see me. Surely it would have been very odd for him because he died in 1964 from a massive heart attack when I was just 16. I'm fairly certain that he would have understood little about what we were doing and very certain he would have called it nonsense. 


Daddy was a mountain man who spent his life farming and hauling freight from Knoxville and Morristown to Sneedville.  He had an eighth grade education, chewed tobacco, smoked heavily and was overweight. He was the proud father of three sons who had managed to escape the rugged mountain life by getting college degrees and moving to cities where there were more opportunities. One son became a doctor. As the only daughter I followed in the footsteps of my brothers; I earned a degree and moved away as well. Somewhere along this path of education we all learned the connection between lifestyle choices and healthy aging that Daddy never understood. If  he did get the connection it was too late to undo the damage because he died at age 64 from a massive heart attack. One of my brothers chose to ignore the information like daddy and he died at age 64 from a heart attack.


Today as I did my workout routine with the masses at the gym I thought about Daddy, my brothers and how life has turned out so far for all of us. While I am now 64, the age of my father when he died, I believe my life will end differently from Daddy's and my one brother. As I ran on the track soaking in the sounds of my music I couldn't help but wish that both my dad and my brother were able to stay around longer so that they could see what an incredible family we are.  I certainly wish they could have known their grandchildren.

The Melungeon Gift

We called him Lidgie which is short for Elijah. Everyone knew that Lidgie was a Melungeon from off Newmans Ridge because his last name was Collins and he had many of the Melungeon physical features including coal black hair, blue eyes and olive skin. Lidgie came into my life when my Uncle Rector hired him to help with farm work; later my father hired him to help on our farm as well.  Lidgie and wife Liddie were always a part of my growing up years. 

During the 1950-60's Melungeons were considered by the US census as 'freed people of color' which meant that they were not African Americans, but in a category of their own.  However the only part of that definition that ever seemed to matter where I lived was the words, "of color". Melungeons were treated as negros in that they were socially shunned; got little to no education; were bribed for their votes; were paid low wages, and lived on poor land on Newmans Ridge. They survived by hard work and truck farming.

Uncle Rector returned to Hancock County following WWII with an honorable discharge after his aircraft bomber was shot down in enemy territory in Yugoslavia. He survived with the help of local peasants and eventually found his way back to the Allies and his platoon.  When he returned to Hancock County he went to work as a high school math teacher.  A few years later he was made principal of the high school, then he ran for county superintendent of schools.  It didn't take him long to decide that he didn't care for politics. He never ran for public office again.  Instead he took up farming and became a rural mail carrier. Lidgie was hired to help with the chores that Uncle Rec could not manage with his other jobs.  Lidgie was also hired to help with our farm work when my father became disabled following a severe heart attack.  

I don't know if it was his war experiences or whether it was just who he was, but when Uncle Rec hired Lidgie the social rules changed with regard to how Lidgie would be treated. He paid him a very good salary; provided him with health and dental care and the transportation to get it; had him sign up for Social Security; encouraged him to vote for who he wanted; and built a new house for him on the farm complete with running water, electricity, and an indoor bathroom with flush toilet and a bathtub. When he worked for us we paid his social security and the same wages he was paid by Uncle Rec.  He always ate at our table and attended our Christmas and other social functions.

Lidge loved the apple trees on our farm. He was especially fond of the red delicious apple tree in the pasture field across from the kitchen window.  The whole community loved these apples and, like Lidgie, looked forward to them each fall.  During the summer one year the red delicious apple tree blew down. It was a sad sight for Lidgie to see the roots of his favorite tree all exposed.  He was given the job of chopping up the tree for wood. Two years after the tree blew down Lidgie was still talking about how he missed that red delicious apple tree.  

Somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas on the second year after the tree blew down Lidgie paid us a visit and he brought with him two new brooms and two new jar mops.  This was a surprise because Lidgie had never given Christmas gifts, but he said these were gifts for us and for Aunt Fay and Uncle Rector. He said, "I want you to look at them handles on the brooms and the mops; they's not a knot or splinter on 'em."  "Now, rub your hands over 'em and feel how smooth they are!"  Then without much pause, he said, "I just couldn't let that apple tree wood be burned up in the stove so I saved some of it and used it to make the handles on the brooms and the jar mops." There was a longer pause and he continued, "I saved back some of the wood from that apple tree and let it dry out real good."  "This year I made the broom and jar mop handles from that wood so that the tree could live on in a new way."

Uncle Rector had the vision that Lidgie's life could be better if he saw that he had access to the things others had.  Lidgie had a vision that an apple tree that he loved could live on in a new way if it could be transformed into four useful handles for brooms and jar mops. What I learned from each of these two men was that the visions they had for themselves and others can live on long after their passing.

Putting Out The Welcome Mat

My growing up years were spent surrounded by the relatives of both my Daddy and Mama.  Daddy had 7 brothers and sisters; Mama had 9, and added together I had 16 aunts and uncles who for the most part lived within a 20 mile radius of my house.  A few uncles and aunts lived in Indiana and other states, but most were no more than 10 miles from my home.  Mama and Daddy were among the older children in their families so this meant their siblings often came by our house for meals, overnight stays and holidays. Home for me was kinda like living in a boarding house with a constant influx of relatives on any given day. Always welcoming and supportive, Mama and Daddy were accustomed to constant adaptations to whoever and whatever came through the door. Both of them seemed to love these drop in visitors. They made these visitors feel welcome and connected to us.  It was often hard for me to think of my family as just us kids, Mama and Daddy; instead it was all of us, Daddy's family, and Mama's family on any given day.For the most part everyone got along, tolerated each other, and shared work and laughter.

My family and my extended family were focused on each other and afraid of the outside world. They visited each other, shared work, worshiped together, and believed in the same things.  Most were Republicans and did not understand Democrats. They had grown up with only one or two Black families in the county and they had no interaction with them. I heard many negative things about Blacks and anyone who was different from us.  I'd never met anyone from another country; I did not know world geography, and I had teachers who didn't know a lot about the larger world. In my small county we referred to anyone outside our community as 'from off' which meant they weren't from Sneedville. My family seemed to distrust anyone outside our community and were always suspicious of people different from them. 

Even after my brothers had served overseas in the military and came back home with slide shows of other countries and stories about people from foreign lands, my family appeared to have little interest in the stories and the people. Actually, it seemed more like fear. Unlike my parents and extended family I was very excited to see the pictures, hear the stories and to imagine what it would be like to visit some of these places and get to know some of the people. I quietly promised myself I would travel one day and see this all for myself.  In this respect I rejected most of the beliefs of my family and hoped one day to have my own different experiences.  My brothers had laid the groundwork for further exploration.

Now fast forward fifty years. With the above background still in my head, I have kept my promise to myself to explore and love a larger world. I have gotten to travel to many continents and counties, have friends across the world, and serve now as a host to foreign exchange students who visit the college campus where I taught. For the last two weeks my husband and I have hosted three Danish students who were here to study in the health care field. Our previous guests were from South America; our next group will be from Mongolia. Every time we serve as hosts I'm very excited to learn about them and what I need to see from their world. I only hope I will live long enough to get to see all of this great big world and it's many people and their wonderful cultures. While it's my job to share my world with them, I find their world to be more exciting. 

For many US citizens 'people from off' are still just that, "OFF". I find this to be sad and believe it to be a result of chosen ignorance. How do you move from being taught to fear the world to actively embracing differences?  I still know the messages my family gave me about people different from me, but I have chosen to trust my own experiences now more than what my family taught me. I believe isolation and little to no experience leads to many wrong ideas and beliefs about the world and its people.  

What I have taken, however, from my family has been the strong sense of hospitality that I learned from them as they welcomed me and other family members.  I know how to make connections to a broader world because I first learned how to make these connections to my family members at home. As my family worked together, shared food, solved problems, and cared for each other we learned respect and tolerance. It's the same hospitality.  I have only learned to cast my net farther into the ocean and across more mountains than the ones I knew as a child.

The Season of Apples

As fall comes around each year my thoughts eventually drift to memories of getting the farm chores done before the 'first cold spell'.  It was routine each year to gather in sweet potatoes, turnip greens, apples, and walnuts before the hard frosts came in November.  There was usually some unspoken sense of urgency about it.

Apples were the most fun because there were so many things that could be done with them.  They could be used to make stack cakes, apple pies, apple dumplings, apple butter, apple jelly and fried apple pies. Mama always had a million ideas for their use. Usually I was involved in the process because Mama firmly believed her job was to teach me every mountain skill she knew so that I would be ready to become a housewife.  While she never said it, I think she believed the Appalachian lifestyle had enormous value economically; 'A penny saved' was truly, 'a penny earned'.  In her case it was more like an apple saved was an apple you didn't have to buy. Mama really didn't relish buying anything if it could be grown on the farm.

On our family farm we had apples, tons of them, which to Mama meant you tried to save as many as you could.  Most of our cooking in the fall revolved around apples; stewed, baked, fried, canned, frozen, preserved, and dried. Every day we had apples in one form or another, for the last five years, some twenty years past Mama's death, I still feel the need to do something with apples in the fall. 

Recently I have been on a quest to find the best apple stack cake recipe to see if I could duplicate Mama's. Mama didn't write her recipes down so I didn't have her blueprint to follow. I asked Appalachian friends, searched a gazillion books, called my relatives, and even consulted with The Apple Barn for a recipe. Each one that I got was different in some way.  I also had to search for dried apples, dark brown, sun-dried apples, not the ones in the grocery store that are white and dried with chemicals. Eventually I began to make progress.

Today I am happy to report that I am decent maker of Stack Cakes.  While they are not Mama's, they are very close.  Close enough to serve with pride to folks who have never had an introduction to them.  If you as a reader would like to know the process, send an email.  I'd like to talk 'stack cake' and would love to have your thoughts and comments.

I'm from...........

Recently I have become a huge fan of Minton Sparks.  She is a spoken word artist here in the Nashville area.  Last year she was the main attraction at the Midnight Cabaret of the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough. She's a poet, a storyteller, buck dancer, and has a wonderful guitarist, John Jackson, who accompanies her. I've never seen anything like her in the storytelling world I live in.  She makes me laugh and sometime her humor is so poignant it takes my breath away. Here's the link to the website. http://www.mintonsparks.com

One of Minton's most loved pieces is "Where are you from?"  This morning I woke up with part of this piece in my head and this blog is my attempt to describe where I am from.  

 I'M FROM........

I'm from people of the mountains; quiet people who don't let you inside 'em for a long time.

I'm from rural country with muddy roads that go nowhere or to a lonely shack.

I'm from Minnie and Ewing, Issac, and Edward, Phrona, and Dona. Seventeen aunts and uncles who came and went out of my life.


I'm from hog killings, chicken butchering, cattle dehorning, bull castrations, and bee keeping. I learned biology and animal anatomy before I knew my own anatomy. 


I dodged spittoons, ambeer, pork and bean cans, and Aunt Ruby's spit that could travel 6 feet. I know Days Work and Garrett's Snuff and the feel of spittle on my hands from chewing 'tbacker'spills.


I'm from illiterate, fist pounding, Bible waving, foaming at the mouth preachers screaming scripture and ignorance in my face. I'm from February baptisins' in frozen creeks and ice clinging to my pure white dress pinned between my legs. I'm from preachers who knew a woman's place and when on the road for revival meeting visited those wet, warm places.


I'm from Aunt Ruby who loved me like her own and helped me forgive my Mama when she "didn't know no better!"


I'm from green, thick mountains that change clothes ever season; mountains where rugged, dirty people survived a cruel civil war and then family feuds.  The Hatfields and the McCoys are in my bones along with the Greene - Jones feud from my own ancestors. Folks fightin' so long they almost forgot what they were fightin' agin.


I'm from clapboard schools built by the WPA, three rooms, three teachers, a coal pile and two outhouses and still I know the capitals of all the states, the order of the presidents, and the love of folks like FDR and Eleanor who thought we were something. 


I'm from mountain creeks filled with leeches, minners, smooth rocks and skinny naked kids. Creeks now full of toilet paper, plastic milk jugs, refrigerators, pesticides, coal bi-products and blown away hillsides from strip mining.


I'm from runnin' shine in muscle cars, meth labs, oxycotton addiction, and good people who say, "There ain't nothing you can do about it."

I'm from Ewing who told his youngins they could make it in a larger world if they got educated, tried and left the places where they had learned to survive one kind of life. Ewing, who could not escape himself because his wife could not imagine a bigger world than she knew.


I'm Patsy with three brothers who loves the PBS series about the Appalachian Mountains and still holds hope for all that is good and right in Appalachia.

A Visit With John Denver

It happened right there in Kroger's while I was shopping for a frozen box of spinach. Herman was picking up a prescription in another part of the store. I seldom hear the background music in stores when I am shopping, and if I do it's usually a catchy, upbeat, dance piece; but, somehow today was different. There I stood looking at the freezer items singing out loud to John Denver's "Sweet Surrender" totally lost in time and space to the lyrics. I did not miss  

single word!

And I don't know wht the future is holdin' in store

I don't know where I'm goin', I'm not sure where I've been.

There's a spirit that guides me, a light that shine for me

My life is worth the livin' I don't need to see the end.

Sweet, Sweet Surrender

Live, live without care

Like a fish in the water

Like a bird in the air.

I never commented to Herman about my behavior or my thoughts as we drove home and resumed our separate routines. About an hour later Herman comes down the stairs with our old John Denver album and puts it on the turntable. Neither of us comment while we continue with lunch preparation and emails.  

I was lost in images, lyrics and so many memories I could not wrap my self around it all. Our oldest son, Cree, was born during the John Denver years.  The first song he ever sang was, "Thanks God I'm a County Boy"; our first major vacation outside Tennessee was to ........yes, Denver. "On the Road" followed us as we moved to the Chesapeake Bay area, and "Grandma's Feather Bed" brought memories of Herman's Granny, and "Annie's Song" was heard as we traveled through a June snowstorm in the Rocky Mountains. It was really a love song written to his first wife Annie, but because of where we were driving when I first heard it, for me it was always a song about nature.

While teaching learning theory in my general psychology classes I usually illustrated classical conditioning with song lyrics and learned emotional reactions. On those days when I discussed how memories and songs are intimately tied to the human experience, I asked my students to provide their own examples of learned emotional experiences.  It always seemed to be one of their and my favorite class days.

Yesterday was a revisiting of my early adulthood years. It was too powerful to share with Herman or with my readers. Today has brought some distance and this article.  Today I am focused on the lyrics of "Sweet Surrender" and what it says about where I am now.  I find most news, no matter whether it's television, magazine, email, text messaged, etc., quite depressing, and I often get too consumed by what has forced it's way into my life.  Somehow rediscovering John Denver and having a conversation with him through his lyrics was the meditation I needed for where I am now. I hope you have some artisans in your life with whom you can engage in a conversation. 

Barbecue Dinners and Krispy Kreme Donuts

Growing up in Sneedville provided limited opportunity for social events outside of the church so when the annual Rural Electric Membership meeting occurred each year it was a big deal.  Like most Tennessee communities, the electric cooperative included all the families who received their electricity through the cooperative office in Jonesville, VA. The bylaws called for an annual meeting of the membership each year, and this meeting was like a big company picnic.  The cooperative provided the main dish of fried or barbecue chicken and the dessert which was always Krispy Kreme Donuts from Knoxville. Each family brought other dishes to round out the meal. Held in September at one of the local schools in Sneedville or one of community schools such as Greene Lawson or Flat Gap Elementary Schools, nobody in their right mind missed this meeting.  

For me this meeting was the only opportunity I had to be with people outside of my little community in the Seventh District of Hancock County. It was so exciting to go to this event because of all the people and the food.  Every year my family either talked with the Kyle Lawson family or sat near their table. My Dad and Kyle had both been on several county boards with each other.

It was here that I first remember seeing Herman, Kyle's son.  He came from a family that loved food and ate plenty of it. What I remember was his 10 year old round body and red hair cut in a flat top. He was friendly, but odd to me in some sort of way. I remember his Granny slipping him money under the picnic table which also seemed odd to me.  I had not had any experiences like this in my family so it seemed strange. But the thing I remember most was the barbecue chicken and the Krispy Kreme donuts. We never had barbecue chicken at home and donuts were out of the question since we didn't travel to Knoxville. The night consisted of eating, playing chase with other kids and catching lightning bugs while our parents talked till after dark. It was such a special event and I always looked forward to it each year. Years passed and I eventually married Herman Lawson, that red headed boy who slimmed down in adolescence.

This week as Herman and I were celebrating my birthday in Nashville we stumbled across the Krispy Kreme Donut shop on Church Street across from the Baptist Hospital. While I never eat donuts at my present age, I will confess to buying a whole dozen, eating three of them, and having a lot of conversations with Herman about donuts and the Electric Cooperative's annual meetings.