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Interview Project

With

Glenn Reynolds

Interviewer: Dylan M Guthrie

10/21/14

Interview Transcript

Dylan: This is Dylan Guthrie and I’m sitting here with Mr. Glenn Reynolds. I’d like to thank you for agreeing to sit down and interview with me.

Glenn: Absolutely.

Dylan: I would just like you to answer the questions to the best of your ability and feel free to speak freely. Okay. First question. Where did you grow up within Appalachia?

Glenn: I grew up in the mountainous region from Richwood, West Virginia up to the Maryland border due to my dad’s travelling and work.

Dylan: So how long did you live in those individual locations?

Glenn: My father followed road construction and the road jobs would last anywhere from four to six months. So probably two or three times a year, we would move to a new locations and go to different schools.

Dylan: Can you describe to me what it was like to have to move schools and make new friends and things like that?

Glenn: In West Virginia at the time, it was a very rural area and there were mostly one room schools where they taught eight grades. Most of the economy was bad because it was right after the depression. The schools were ill equipped and homes at that time didn’t have electricity or water; everything was very primitive.

Dylan: Do you identify yourself as an Appalachian?

Glenn: I’m a West Virginian and an American. The Appalachian Mountains is the name of the region, but I am not identified with that region.

Dylan: Why would you not call yourself an Appalachian?

Glenn: It doesn’t have any meaning. I’m and American and a West Virginian. It’s just like calling yourself a New River Valley person, it’s just an area that doesn’t have enough meaning.

Dylan: Consider the Appalachian area, not that these people call themselves Appalachian, but consider the Appalachian area. How would you describe the culture and certain aspects of that culture?

Glenn: The culture was very rural with a poor economy. There was no industry much coming into the mountainous areas. People were very poor. And the living conditions were pretty poor. Not much in the way of transportation and communication systems? People were living with very limited resources.

Dylan: So, do you think that’s changed today? Do you think that it’s still the same today?

Glenn: No, it’s changed dramatically over the years. Rapidly changed with better roads and more jobs available. People becoming employed. School system got better.

Dylan: If you were to meet a person, and you had never met the person before, would you be able to tell if they were Appalachian?

Glenn: I don’t think so. I’ve never been identified as a person from Appalachia by my parents or actions. So I don’t think that I would recognize one.

Dylan: So, people don’t generally identify you as a person from Appalachia?

Glenn: No.

Dylan: But do you think that happens? Do you think there are people out there that you can look at and say that they are from Appalachia?

Glenn: Very limited number.

Dylan: We talked about the culture of Appalachia and you pointed out some of the aspects. How do you think that these aspects differ from those around the country and the world?

Glenn: You have to understand that a rural area is a totally different culture from a city. People in the rural areas have to live off the land and they tend to be more resourceful and independent and they’ve got to make do with what they’ve got. They are a little more independent.

Dylan: Do you think an independent farmer from Appalachia is different from the same sort of person in the Midwest or other regions?

Glenn: They’re the same sort of person in agriculture, except for they had fewer mechanical farm machinery. Everything was pretty primitive. Also, the mountainous regions are more difficult to farm than the flatlands. The farming culture is somewhat similar; however the mountains and terrain are the handicaps.

Dylan: What role does family play in your life?

Glenn: Family is a basic institution in my life. In that era, family was very important. Everyone stuck together and helped each other. Then people helped other families in need. But the family structure was very important and the father figure was usually the main figure in the family and the mother took care of all the raising of the children and the household and things. In my family, my mother was probably equally as strong as my father as far as a promotional and motivational person. She wanted everyone to get an education. All of her children got college degrees. The family is very important.

Dylan: You said that the man was typically the head of the household and the wife is in charge of taking care of the kids and the household.

Glenn: And working at home.

Dylan: What sort of reasons for that? Do you think it has anything to do with the region? Time? Religion?

Glenn: The time, because there were not jobs for women at the time outside of the home. My mother, she did sewing, laundry, cooking for anybody that she could help. She was very resourceful.

Dylan: Did religion play a role in your family?

Glenn: Yea, religion was very important to most families in the region. Most people attended church on a regular basis. The church was a place where you helped other people.

Dylan: So what sort of church did you go to?

Glenn: I was baptized in an Episcopal church, but mostly attended Presbyterian Church until I went to college where I went to a Methodist church, then a Baptist church, then back to a Presbyterian.

Dylan: Ok. So, growing up, did you have any memories of the way people from Appalachia were portrayed in the media? Like the news, or TV, or popular culture? So, when you heard people talk, did they paint a certain picture of the way people from Appalachia area?

Glenn: Well, of course when I was growing up before I got to be 18 years old, you never heard much from the media because there was no media. We didn’t have newspaper, TV, radio or anything. You heard anything, it was transferred by the word of mouth. So you didn’t hear much world news, except when World War II started and then all the men were drafted into the army. In fact, when I was going to school. I went to a one room school, and I was in the eighth grade. I had a partner that was 18 years old and he was drafted into the army. When I graduated from the eighth grade, I was the first student that she had ever sent to high school. She was very proud of me.

Dylan: So, you didn’t really have a lot of contact with the media and stuff like that; how do you think the media would have portrayed people from the area at that time? Do you think that there’d be any unfairness or anything like that there?

Glenn: Later on, after I left high school and sometime in the ‘60s the media began to portray the Appalachian region as sort of a backward, illiterate, uneducated area. This was not totally valid. There was some of that but mostly these people were independent and resourceful. The image was a little bit false.

Dylan: Why do you think that they were painted that way?

Glenn: It made a big media story. There were movies and things made of it. It was a story.

Dylan: You can talk about now or then. Did you eat any special or particular kinds of food in the area?

Glenn: Most of the food that we have in the area, was homegrown food and vegetable. It was typical country home food. The meat was either domestic animals, or when we went hunting, you always preserved the meat for consumption. Everything was cooked at home.

Dylan: Did you have meat often?

Glenn: Whenever we had it. We didn’t always have meat because of the circumstances you didn’t always have meat.

Dylan: What would you consider respectful in your community? If you were to meet someone, what would you expect them to do as far as customs and courtesies and things? What kind of customs and courtesies do you practice when you go into people’s homes?

Glenn: In that era, the courtesy that you would show other people: you would say yes sir and no sir to the men and yes ma’am and no ma’am to the women. When you met someone, you always spoke them and was very respectful, particularly to the older folks. And you expected to be respected in return.

Dylan: So this is just the opposite question. What would you consider disrespectful in your eyes? Like if they were invited into your home as a guest.

Glenn: If you met someone on the street and they didn’t speak to you, that would be considered to be disrespectful. If they come into your home, generally if they are invited into your home, they are of a more friendly atmosphere. Usually, you don’t take issue with someone in your home and argue with them about some issue. It’s just a courtesy to not do that.

Dylan: Do you think that these common courtesies are the same everywhere across the country?

Glenn: They’re different. Some areas of the country, people are more abrupt and don’t acknowledge meeting someone at all. I call that a southern thing, southern culture. Where people like to greet one another cheerfully and everything.

Dylan: Why do you think that is? Why do you think that applies more to south than any other region?

Glenn: I think that when you get into bigger cities, people become not as personable, not as close together like a community or family.

Dylan: And you feel that it’s because of the atmosphere that a city creates?

Glenn: Yes, it’s totally different.

Dylan: What do you think are some common misconception about the Appalachian people?

Glenn: Well, the most common is that they are backward and illiterate. Many are uneducated, but they are very intelligent. The common picture that you get is just backward and illiterate.

Dylan: Can you give a specific example of something that you may remember from your childhood that may counter the stereotype?

Glenn: No, but let me tell you a little story about my childhood. Right after the depression, early on, my dad had a good job. He was an engineer on the railroad. When the depression hit, he got laid off. Then he went to work for a lumber company that was logging in West Virginia. He ran the locomotive for them. He made good money and bought three little houses in the lumber town. He lived in one and rented the other two. After a couple of years, the lumber company went bankrupt. He lost his job, and they owed him about eight months’ pay. Well there no jobs available then. So he couldn’t pay the mortgages on the three houses. So they were foreclosed and sold at auction. Well the auction didn’t bring what he owed on them. So the bank wrapped it up into one mortgage and he had a 30 year mortgage to pay off over the next 30 years. So when he began to work again in road construction, every month, he had to pay the mortgage. Usually it was about half of what he made. Now, I grew up watching that bill come in every month and saw the stress that it took for them to rake up enough money to pay the mortgage on houses that they no longer had. When I got out of high school at 18 years old, there was no chance of going to college. So I went in the Marine Corps, where I made 75$ a month. What I did is take out an allotment of 47$ every month for four years to help them pay that mortgage. When I got out of the Marine Corps, I went to college. Of course, my mother worked and paid back every dollar that I had sent home. It helped them get it paid off in 1952. Then they bought a little farm in a mountainous area there near Marleton. My dad retired on the farm and raised sheep and a few cows. The last couple of years I was in high school, we lived on that farm. I walked two and half miles on a dirt road to get on the bus to ride 25 miles to schools. That was some of the experiences that I grew up with.

Dylan: That’s very interesting. How would you want young people to think about the Appalachian region? What would you want to tell them?

Glenn: Let me put it this way. I look at the Appalachian region today as a beautiful mountainous region with some highways through them. They have a tourist industry. It’s a beautiful place to visit. The farms are a lot more prosperous now. A lot of government projects that went through the region all the through the Tennessee valley and down and the highway projects. It’s the reason that the region no longer carries the stigma of Appalachia.

Dylan: Do you think that stigma is still around today?

Glenn: No, I don’t.

Dylan: How about in the minds of the people outside of the area?

Glenn: I am not aware of it. I don’t see it anywhere.

Dylan: How do you feel growing up in the area has affected you today? In family life? Professionally? In life in general?

Glenn: I think it made me more independent and more determined to get an education and achieve something in life.  And to take advantage of all of the opportunities that are available to me. It helped me a lot.

Dylan: Why do you think growing up in the area did this for you?

Glenn: Like I said, it made me independent and strong enough to not be upset by little setbacks. I noticed when I got out of high school and eventually went to college, due to the school system that I attended being very weak, I had to play catch up in math and several subjects to catch up with my peers. I was determined to do so, I had to work a little longer and harder, but I could compete.

Dylan: Will you just take a second to speak about your professional life?

Glenn: Probably when I went into the Marine Corps, I lacked a little self-confidence but Marine Corps training gave me a little more self-confidence. Then, after four years in the Marine Corps and one year in Korea where I worked on aircraft, I went to college and studied to become an electrical engineer. Then I had an opportunity to get into the Air Force and become a pilot, which was an ambition of mine since early high school. So, I was able to fly in the Air Force, and later in the Air National Guard for a total of 32 years of total service. I retired at the rank of Colonel, which was very successful for me. During the same time that I was in the Air National Guard and went to work as an electrical engineer for American Electric Power and did some engineering and then moved into marketing and sales. I learned to sale and do marketing and was very successful. By doing so, I moved up the ladder to economic development for the company, which is seeking new industry in the area where you work and moved on into the ranks of management and later on to be the director of marketing and customer service for the company. Which was a pretty good run in the corporate world. So, I have to say that I look back on it as successful.

Dylan: Are you aware that there is discussion of the area in the academic in the world?

Glenn: I am aware, but I can’t remember any of the books that I have read about the area. There are some very good books about the region, but none of the names of them stand out. But I am aware of them.

Dylan: Have you seen shows like the Andy Griffith Show or the Beverley Hillbillies?

Glenn: Yes.

Dylan: Do those shows mean anything to you? Do they hit home with you?

Glenn: Most of those shows have a little bit of truth in them, but then its embellished to sell the move and to provide entertainment. It tends to be a little more fiction than truth.

Dylan: Do you think those shows would offend people within the Appalachian area?

Glenn: It’s not offensive to me personally. It may be offensive to some, but not to me.

Dylan: Have you ever heard or met anyone that would identify themselves an Appalachian?

Glenn: No, I’ve never heard anyone identify themselves as Appalachian. The closest would be to call themselves West Virginian?

Dylan: Why do you think it is that people inside the area don’t normally call themselves Appalachian, but people outside the area do refer to them as Appalachian?

Glenn: I’ve never heard anybody call them Appalachians. Maybe I have a limited background in the area. When I think of West Virginia, I think there are some important people that came out of there. One guy is Homer Hickham, who was the rocket scientist. He came out of that region?

Dylan: Do you think that he was successful because of the region?

Glenn: I think he was successful because he had an interest in a subject science and he had a teacher that saw his aptitude that gave him opportunities to expand his knowledge. Seems like the teacher will always make the difference in those situations.

Dylan: So, if you will just take a second to talk about your college education in West Virginia. What was that like?

Glenn: When I first went into college, I saw that I was far behind. I was out of high school for four years. I was far behind the other members of my class because I needed some math to catch up. So I had to work hard. At the same time I had to work to earn a little money. I was working twenty hours a week at Kroger stocking shelves at night. So, I had to play catch up academically, but soon I caught back up. Though I was probably never as good as some of the scholars who came from great high schools, but I managed to do satisfactory work.

Dylan: How do you think your college education compared to other colleges across the nation?

Glenn: First, I’d have to look at the West Virginia. At that time, there were only two engineering schools in the state of West Virginia: West Virginia Institute of Technology and West Virginia University. West Virginia Institute of Technology was a smaller school and I selected it and I think that I did the right thing. Now, how it ranked against other universities, I do not know how it compared to engineering at Virginia Military Institute and Virginia Tech. It was good, or better, or equal to West Virginia University. But I couldn’t rank it with other major universities because they probably had more resources.  But I found out this, when I got in industry we hired a lot of engineers from VMI from WVU and UVA and West Virginia Tech. And most of the ones that we hired from West Virginia Tech. stood out and performed better than the others. And someone asked me why, and I said “the only thing I can say is the guys that went to West Virginia Tech. probably had to work a little harder and took it a little more serious than some of the others”.

Dylan: So, is there anything else that you would like to say? About your childhood, or the region?

Glenn: Well, I’ll speak about my family. My dad was married previously to my mother and he had three children: two boys and a girl. Then he married my mother and they had five children. The two oldest brothers served were drafted in the Army and served in the Army with distinction. My oldest brother served in the Marine Corps in World War II, south pacific. Then myself and my two brothers served in the Air Force and were all pilots and at the same time we were all fighter pilots. Then we all made Captain together at different times, and eventually is was all Lieutenant Colonel together. We were a very patriotic family that based primarily on my family structure. My mother was always promoting college…always always promoting college. She was a lady that worked her entire life for practically nothing. But when she was 72 years old, she started a bed and breakfast. They put a Snowshoe resort in, right near the farm. She turned her house into a bed and breakfast and she ran the thing until she was 87 years old and made plenty of money. She sold a bed for 6$ and two meals for 3$, but people that would come were attorneys and doctors and would tip real big.

Dylan: I’d like to thank you for your time and I deeply appreciate you sitting and talking with me.

Glenn: I’m happy to talk to you, I hope that you got something that you can use in your paper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reflection

            The interview with Mr. Glenn Reynolds was very interesting because it revealed things about his past that were initially unknown to me. He took the opportunity to speak about his family and the way life was as he was growing up, and the way that he thought about certain cultural aspects in Appalachia. He also spoke about his grade school and college educations, his father’s sporadic working life, and his successful professional career after leaving the Appalachian area. Glenn Reynolds is a great example of the type of person that directly counters the general stereotype of individuals from the area; not only does he differ greatly from the stereotype, but he has almost no concept of an Appalachian.

Because his father was employed by a company that built roads throughout the state of West Virginia, Glenn’s childhood was not spent in a specific town or area in the state. The family was forced to move “two to three times a year” where the Glenn was forced to change schools and towns often.  According to him, “the schools were ill equipped…and everything was very primitive”, which seems to have lead to an education that made it very difficult to complete a formal grade school education; he was the “first student…ever sent to high school” (referring to his elementary school). Perhaps it was because of the difficult economic times that people were forced to drop out of school at a young age in order to help support the family, but the lack of education in the area has long been used as a tool to stereotype the people in the Appalachian area. One of the presumptions that people made about Appalachia is that the people were dropping out of school because they weren’t intelligent or hardworking, but it was because young people were being forced to work by the very challenging economic and social times.

The ill-equipped schooling that Glenn received throughout his childhood created difficulties for him that followed him to college.  Glenn said, “When I first went to college I saw that I was far behind”. It’s a statement that shows one of the challenges that he faced because of the tough economic situation that many people of the area suffered under. This sort of statement shows us that the lacking education that he received followed him into his adulthood; it presented him with unfair challenges that could’ve held him back. Fortunately, Glenn Reynolds is a very hardworking man that was lucky enough to see many of his dreams realized, but many individuals from the area may have not been so fortunate. While it may have not held Glenn back later in life, this sort of problem can often prevent (or at least make it challenging) a person from reaching certain goals in life. Because the problem of poor education is likely to be a problem that touched many lives of children in the Appalachian area, it begs the question: how many people were forced to drop out of school to support the family and, thus, miss the chance to realize dreams that these individuals may’ve had?

While he acknowledged that there were problems with his childhood schooling and the environment that was created because of the tough times, he neither explicitly stated nor implied that there was a group or person of blame. It was not because he was a person who grew up in the Appalachian Mountains, but because it was the way that life was. He seemed to view his lacking education as a challenge that must be beaten in order to reach his goals in life. In his mind, the trials and tribulations that he and his family faced were a part of normal life.  He was not looking for someone to blame so that could relieve himself or responsibility. He used these challenges to push him to succeed throughout his life.

I had the chance to ask Mr. Reynolds if he considered himself an Appalachian and he very abruptly replied, “I’m a West Virginian and an American. The Appalachian Mountains is the name of the region, but I am not identified with that region.” Upon asking why he felt this way, he stated “It doesn’t have any meaning. I’m and American and a West Virginian.”; furthermore, he didn’t think that he could spot an Appalachian person among other people. These very simple remarks introduce some very important concepts. It’s almost as if he has no concept of an “Appalachian person”, but only the concept of people that come from the area. This was interesting because it forces one to wonder: do all people from that area see things this way? Are the stereotypes of people from the Appalachian area only carried by people from outside of the area itself?

Glenn did understand that there were some misconceptions and stereotypes about the people that come from the area, but he seemed to carry none of the stereotypes about the people. He didn’t even seem to link these people together as a group; there was no concept of “Appalachians” as a group of people. In his mind, he is a West-Virginian, not an Appalachian. And it’s not like he resented to term “Appalachian”, or the idea of being from that area, it just wasn’t the way he identified himself. The fact that he carried no concept of “Appalachian” people would make it difficult for him to see the people from the area as a group that has been socially oppressed by much of the country.

I chose to interview Mr. Glenn Reynolds because I knew that he would counter the stereotype that many Americans seem to believe. He is very successful man, with a strong beliefs in hard work, family, and morality. What I did not expect is that he would not call himself an Appalachian, nor have a concept of what an Appalachian person was. Again, he labelled himself as a “West Virginian and an American”, which counters the common idea of the Appalachian regional and cultural homogeneity. Glenn is a prime example of the differences between individuals and areas within the region solely because he does not call himself Appalachian, but a West Virginian. This very simple statement acknowledges the fact that culture differs within the region. The people are not all the same. Perhaps the American public can learn a lesson from people like Glenn Reynolds. He defeats the stereotype.

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