Patrick Keller
Interview project final
ERH 303WX-01
12/12/2018
HR: BR’s, General knowledge about Appalachia gained from the course and previous papers. No specific sources used in writing the paper.
Me: Okay, Thanks for coming today! first question where did you grow up in Appalachia?
Leuelin: I grew up in Cabin Virginia, it’s southwestern Virginia Near the north Carolina Virginia state line. It’s actually near the small town of mount airy north carolina also known as Mayberry if you ever watch the Andy Griffith show.
Me: No way that’s freaking cool! My parents love that show and we still watch it.
Leuelin: Yeah it’s based off my hometown.
Me: Alright so second question. Do you Identify as Appalachian? If so, why?
Leuelin: I definitely say that I consider myself Appalachian and that’s usually just because I was raised to do more with less, I was raised to always work hard, always treat people with hospitality and respect. and just living a simpler way of life and using common sense to solve pretty complicated problems.
Me: Alrighty, third question, what would you describe as aspects of Appalachian people and Appalachian culture?
Leuelin: Uh, Big thing Like I said earlier is just doing more with less a lot of people they grew up in the great depression and stuff like that. they were used to having a lot less and working really hard for what they have. You’ll often go into a job or something and they’ll just ask ya how much do you work. You just show that your a good worker they’ll keep ya even if you don’t do the best job as long as you’re there working and putting forth a hard effort. and also on something like that a big thing is just the manners If you do that a lot of the older people will really respect you.
Me: So, fourth question, can you tell if someone is from Appalachian or is not from the region?
Leuelin: Yeah you can tell there is plenty of ways of telling usually by the way they talk if they usually get pretty aggravated talking to someone trying to hurry them up. for us if your sitting down talking with someone I’ve been in a store, gone in, for just a jug of milk and ended up just talking to someone for 45 minutes. cause your just being civil with them.
Me: do you consider Appalachians to be culturally different in any way from other people in the US?
Leuelin: I would definitely say so i mean there’s no many places that places as much pride in hard work. we kinda share were definitely still kinda see ourselves separate from the rest of the nation. Because we see all this craziness going around and were just trying to stay sane in our own little small town deal with ourselves be successful for ourselves and help out our community. also with that is I mean we just end up having a lot of stuff where anywhere else would be considered impolite , with the Civil War and stuff despite everything the war is still recent on a lot of people’s minds it’s still a big thing and you’ll still hear em calling anyone from north of the Mason Dixon yanks and stuff like that.
Me: I got called a yank when I came here and I’m from Oregon so that was interesting.
Leuelin: So anyway, and for a lot of stuff like that and then we still don’t see the flag (confederate) as like hate. People don’t know what hate speech is a lot it is old timing ways of saying stuff That the words would normally be very offensive but for that you just know that it means an entirely different thing. So like “cotton pickin” for example a lot of people think oh that’s racist because it relates to slavery but its just cause picking cotton sucks. and that was always a real big thing. and a redneck isn’t some hillbilly hill jack, he works hard for his living and literally the back of his neck is burnt because he’s been out in the sun all day.
Me: What role if any does family play in your life?
Leuelin: It’s usually pretty big even with around like family meals and stuff you’ll invite people that you normally don’t, and especially with my family there is feuding going on. yeah and it makes it pretty hard but even then like around Christmas thanksgiving or anything like that well still cook a big mess of food up for everybody. make that and spread it to everyone else and we’ll make sure and give it to them even if we aren’t on speaking terms with them well still give them a call saying hey we just cooked up you can come by and eat with us if you want and sit a spell of if you want we can drop it by your house.
Me: so do you think feuding is like a big issue or not?
Leuelin: Depends on which generation? it’s usually across generations that your getting the feuding. So with a lot of the older people, um, they usually worked out together. and then they are used to being around each other but then they’ll be feuding with someone else who is like from a middle age generation. something like that but even the middle age there’s more. That is also your family builds a reputation, for us I was always told never mess with an Ayers, a pack or an Allen. All the Ayers are crazy, all the Packs run their mouths all the time, and Allen’s well ya know we have a saying “pink Allen white rabbit” from where they inbred a lot. They have like different complexions and ya just know it. your like oh… there’s an Allen. and it’s just something that’s just widely accepted from around where we are. and the like dynamic of the name changes after a while. MacMillen or McMillan are known as hard workers in orchards. that being said don’t ever loan us a truck because if we break it well fix it and it’ll run but it’s gonna be broke at some point.
Me: Number 7, growing up how do you remember Appalachian being portrayed in the media?
Leuelin: I definitely remember seeing it, well with the Andy Griffith show we were kind of portrayed as this idyllic place, and a lot of people try and emulate that but then they go outside of town and it’s a bunch of hilljacks which is kind of like the N word for us.
They always see us as stupid illiterate inbreds. But really you don’t know that that man there has worked all of his life than you’ve worked ever and it’s just such a strange dynamic because you’ll be there and you’ll know the culture there will be commonly accepted terms like there will be a standard greeting of the day you know “ how ya doin? Well ya know I woke up above the dirt so pretty well. But other people might say well your car broke down but you woke up above the dirt. It’s just a kind of baseline that as long as you’re alive you’re doing pretty well. and for us a lot of other places don’t really understand that i’ve noticed and especially here people will just look at me like I’m weird. You’ll have really fun sayings like uhh, ”hanging in there like a hair on a biscuit” and its just to make them laugh and get a smile on their face. And people look at you like “your an idiot” whereas if you go down south people are just like “oh he’s a good ole country boy having a good time” and that’s really a big change in the views.
Me: Number 8 do you, your family or your friends prepare and eat certain kinds of food?
Leuelin: Uh we definitely do, big ole pounds of cornbread, hog Dow? we have pinto beans, collared greens, mustard greens, turnip greens and also vinegar beans. and that’s pretty exclusive and well endue, and it’s the old fashioned way of canning green beans. You don’t have a pressure canner to pressure it and make sure it seals right, so you do it the old timey way and add vinegar and that would add acidity to it to where bacteria and stuff wont grow in it. and it adds that flavor and vinegar is used in almost every southern cuisine at some point weather it be greens or anything else like that.
Me: interesting. Okay, number 9. What would you consider to be respectful in your community?
Leuelin: for us it’s definitely manners and just respect for the elders. you know, yes ma’am, no ma’am, yes sir, no sir. also holding the door open for an elderly person, even till like 15 feet away where most people think its awkward to hold it, it shows that your looking out for them. and a lot of worked really hard in their lives so their body is tore up. there was an old man who used to come into my store that was a coal miner. Broke every bone in his body. He had steel rods in every limb. and he would still come out and walk around and still be willing to help you do your job just to be nice or something so if i can hold the door for him thats the least i can do. and you’ll never really know who you’ll meet cause you’ll meet some people who are really influential have a lot of money and can get you a job where it’s really nice and they wot look like anything. If you help them our it will pay out in the long run for both ends.
Me: Okay, number 10. What would you consider to be disrespectful in you community
Leuelin: definitely disrespect of elders, lack of common courtesy for stuff like that and not keeping your word. A lot of stuff in southern, at least in our Appalachian culture is based on your word. So, you take them at their word and then if they don’t follow through on it, it’s not just them that’s put down but it’s their entire family. Shelia is married to Jim and we were gonna sell a car but, did not split it 50/50 with me. it could even be like yeah this fella he was gonna come help me out on the farm and he never showed up. Then no one is gonna take him at this word. It’s always like kind of a fun saying we have “you can’t cash my check but you can take me at my word. so were not always the most when you don’t have anything else you still have your honor and integrity.
Me: cool alright. that coincides a lot with the values here that’s interesting. What do you think is a common misconception about Appalachian people?
Leuelin: Uh just once again going back to the intelligence thing, because a lot of people could literally fix a truck with a mountain dew can a clothes hanger and some duct tape. I’ve seen it happen before and it’s stuff where normally like its 500 dollars and three days to fix it and some boy just gets under the truck with a mountain dew can and fixes it. its like whoa okay well there’s that. and then also the general standing of wealth. like how people come into work with ratty clothes all tore to pieces, like my boss he’s well off he has a 2.5 million dollar house he has 7 corvettes and stuff like that. You’d never know it because he’s wearing wranglers with holes in it stained all to wazoo, wearing white sneakers that have the bottoms tore out of them. and half the time he’s not even wearing a shirt and if he is it’s raggedy and been torn by barbed wire and stuff. and you’d never know that man has that kind of money but he does. you’ll see an old man sitting on a bench or something reading a newspaper and he might be wearing like Sunday clothes or something and you don’t think anything and then you watch him and he gets in a brand new Cadillac. and your like “oh wow that dude was actually rich.” Stuff like that is people don’t look beyond skin depth the Appalachian culture is so much more than that.
Me : What would you want young people to know about Appalachian people and culture.
Leuelin : I would say doing more with less. that is a huge part of Appalachian culture and I think that really extends from the reconstruction era after the civil war where the south wasn’t helped it was just pushed off to the side and let on it’s own saying figure it out yourself. and then with the great depression a lot of people were hit hard with that. with textile corporations putting the small farms out of business. they are always being kicked down and never raised up so they are constantly used to just having to do what they need to do to get the job done no matter what it takes. So that’s a really important think. and I’d definitely say that people need to be a lot more careful with pain killers and stuff like that cause right now a lot of people in my generation and older are getting hooked on painkillers. It’s just, it’s really destroying the Appalachian culture.
Me: Well hey thank you for doing the interview today, appreciate it man.
Reflection Essay: 1040 words
Humbleness, it’s a quality most people seem to have lost in the modern world. That being said most of the time when I interact with people from Appalachia I get the impression that they are very humble. They don’t brag much and if they are well off you would never know it. It’s not necessarily that the culture in Appalachia is that different it’s that they have retained the social skills and manners that the rest of the country has lost especially in the cities. A second thing is the positivity. No matter how tough their existence is they always say they are doing well.
When I started the interview I was not really worried about offending my subject as I would treat them with the same dignity and respect just as I have experienced in the last couple year of living in Appalachia. I started off by asking a few basic questions: Where are you from in the region? Do you see yourself as Appalachian ect. As it turns out he lives super close to Mount Airy which for those that do not know Is the town that the Andy Griffith Show was based off of. I thought this was super interesting because my parents would always watch that show with us when my brothers and I were little. The way my parents explained it they said that’s an example for us of how society should be and how we should act manners wise.
This is in contrast with the stereotypes that we have learned about in class which says that Appalachians are a bunch of unintelligent standoffish hicks on meth where as in the show they are portrayed as down to earth and welcoming. In the show you always see people holding doors open for each other and greeting each other on the street where as everywhere else it seems like people could care less about each other. I’ve had nothing but good experiences in Lexington as well people always greet me on the street and will just randomly strike up a conversation with me. A big thing that I have noticed is that they never talk about themselves and always ask you questions and even when you do ask them questions they downplay everything.
One of the main things that stuck with me from the interview is when Llewellyn said “he’s well off he has a 2.5 million dollar house he has 7 corvettes and stuff like that. You’d never know it because he’s wearing wranglers with holes in it stained all to wazoo, wearing white sneakers that have the bottoms tore out of them”. This goes back to the main topic of this reflection which is humbleness. This is the quality I admire most about the Appalachian people probably because it’s the way I was raised. I even feel a little weird saying this but my dad has done pretty decent for himself but you would never know that because he dresses in flannels, blue jeans and a 30 year old pair of boots that have been repaired multiple times. He drives old beat up cars and never gets rid of, or buys anything if he can help it. So you would never suspect that he has any money at all and that’s just the way he likes it because people don’t treat him differently. The lessons I gleaned from my dad about not boasting, living simply and being humble and thankful for everything you have, have largely been confirmed by my experiences living here, interacting with the people and taking this class.
Then there is the stereotype of violence. This is one of the big things that critics of the region will use to put it down. Yes it’s true Appalachia has had its share of violent events in its past just like everywhere else. And yes people may have resorted to violence more often because of the austerity of the region and the lack of effective law enforcement in sufficient numbers. But when it comes down to it they are not necessarily inherently violent but you mess with their family, those they love, their livelihood or property they’ll fight to the last man against you. I’ll take people that will fight for what they love over the critics who won’t stand for anything.
The other stereotype is that of unintelligent, the belief that Appalachians are inherently intellectually inferior. I would argue that they are some of the most intelligent people on the planet but this depends on your definition of intelligence. Appalachians are some of the most street smart people on earth. They know how to take care of themselves make due with less and I think this is more important than having book smarts. I guarantee you that most of those people who criticize the region have no street smarts and wouldn’t be able to survive out in the sticks. Being book smart is fine but you better get the street smarts first because all those books don’t matter if you can’t survive in the real world. This being said Appalachia has its share of billionaires and famous academics. Don’t let their slow drawl fool you they are usually pretty damn smart.
The Appalachian lifestyle is not something to scoff at, it is something to emulate. We learn values like family first, standing up for what you believe, humbleness and street smarts. They can help us realize that we don’t need a bunch of fancy expensive things and that you can be happy with less. If people today were as polite and respectful as Appalachians the world would be a much nicer place. Maybe just Maybe the threat of a violent response to someone messing with your family or property will make the world a more respectful place. Being able to know you have a lot but being humble about it will get you far in life and make it much easier to get along with folks. That being said you have to be able to go from zero to 100 really quick to protect those you love, this doesn’t mean that you should be violent all the time but you should be willing to do violence for the ones you love.