Most weekends we wind up taking the kids to spend time with their grandfather - a wholly remarkable man of 83 who I'm trying to convince to dictate his memoirs to me, there's material for a book in there, or at least a few dozen blog posts (but those are for another time). His home is a mere 90 minutes from us; I'm from a decent-sized city, even Lexington KY took some getting used to. Eastern KY, however, is quite literally a different world. With only minimal, one-way tweets (when the wind blows in the right direction and I pick up *some* service) to keep me 'connected' and remind people yes, I'm still alive and it's really surreal out here, it's an interesting bit of downtime - in small doses.
Kentucky native Billy Ray Cyrus (yes, *her* dad) recently, almost stereotypically, was chosen to narrate one of those History Channel shows - "The History of the Hillbilly" - and that is surely the impression of the area most people get; aging moonshiners with long white beards and banjos. That's not reality; however, the area is certainly economically impoverished. Billboards on the main drag indicate exactly where the money is in this area; lawyers dealing with workers' comp cases for Black Lung after years of coal mining (yes, Loretta Lynn really was a "Coal Miner's Daughter" just minutes from here). Other ambulance chasers handle road accident disability cases, drug support clinics handle the effects of prescription pain medicines ("Oxy Cotton" as it's called here), there's teen pregnancy and alcoholism helplines... the only successful businesses here are lawyers and healthcare.
Well, not quite. There's a new generation of moonshiners now, with a new cash crop. Not much grows in Kentucky, just tobacco and bluegrass. And dope. Tons of the stuff; just as their Prohibition forefathers did, where there's a demand for something illegal, folks become outlaws. Local superstitions help make sure much of the production goes undetected; rumors of a "booger in the holler" (rough translation: a ghost in the valley) keep all but the bravest away and allow the weed to get harvested uninterrupted at night.
There's definitely a market. If you're looking for where the kids hang out on Friday and Saturday nights, look no further than the grocery store parking lot. There's literally nowhere else to go; nothing else to do. It's a strange sight that might take you a while to put your finger on precisely what else is missing, as well - the town recently came out in censuses as one of the "whitest" in the US. The entire county has just one non-Caucasian family. Entertainment is limited; radio serves both kinds of music - country *and* western, as the old Blues Brothers joke goes, other than that it's gospel and revival, and these god-fearing folk have entered the 21st century with a slew of neon-lit roadside shacks renting adult DVD's.
Afternoons at the grocery store are just as surreal. Women in their late twenties, early thirties at the most, have lines on their faces that exaggerate their ages and tell their stories; accompanied by their teenage daughters, holding their own children - generational compression. The local TV station broadcast the high school prom last night; couples announced, one at a time. The same surnames, again and again - each accompanied by a story from my father-in-law. "I knew his grandaddy, he was a no-count drunk". Ambition doesn't exist for these kids. Very few of them will ever leave this town, whose most famous son is Larry Flynt (of "Hustler" magazine fame). It's not even considered a tragedy round here - that's just the way the world works.
The grocery store this afternoon was quite a scene. A man pulled up in the parking lot in a pickup truck. He had a dead deer sitting bolt upright in the passenger seat. Unusual enough, yes. Presumably he didn't want to get the liner dirty in the bed of his truck. What topped the whole experience was watching him delicately move the said dead deer out of the seat, so his son could climb out of the back.
It was definitely time to head home.
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