I had a friend here [at home]. His name was Dennis. He wrote me a few times. Before the war, his house was like a second home to me, because I was always over there. He lived at home with his mom, dad, and sister. His father was a sheetContinue Reading
James Agee, the father I’ll start with a blanket statement: Most, if not all, writers are SOBs (including women authors). Take William Faulkner, for example, whose drinking bouts were legendary and whose daughter, on the occasion of her tenth birthday, begged Faulkner to stop drinking for just one day. ToContinue Reading
“All extremes of feeling are allied with madness.” from Orlando by Virginia Woolf Love can be extreme. We labor over deep affections, encourage hopeful prospects, and bend over backwards. Passions rise, hormones rage, and dopamine surges. Eyes are star-filled and grins are wide and heady. Sometimes, love incurs disastrousContinue Reading
Appalachian Spring by composer Aaron Copland (1900-1990), is one of, if not the most iconic and recognizable pieces of American music. Full Stop. The vast majority of people these days don’t know the proper title and may just think of it as the old Shaker hymn “Simple Gifts.” Which, asContinue Reading
One fine autumn day, a few months after my father passed away, my mother and I sat at the old cherrywood dining table and waxed nostalgic over old photographs. Like always, I soaked up every word and story, relishing even the stories I’ve heard over and over – about soContinue Reading
While meandering through the Museum of Appalachia’s treasure trove in Norris, Tennessee, I came across an exhibit encased in glass, and was intrigued by the words: She has been called: The Cherokee Chieftainess. The Pocahontas of the West, One of the Great Women in American History. In another section, I readContinue Reading
The Suffrage Coalition of Knoxville, Tennessee, has organized several parades to honor the history of women’s right to vote. The organization is headed by Wanda Sobieski, and is keeping that history alive. The parades are mainly held in downtown Knoxville. Women in white dresses with sashes wear hats and holdContinue Reading
We Southerners cherish our “characters” – eccentrics and outliers who intensify the spiciness of life. Take William Faulkner. To his neighbors in Oxford, Mississippi, Faulkner was “count no count,” a little bitty fellow who put on airs while sporting a limp and a cane and donning a cape for hisContinue Reading
Today, our journey begins in Appalachia’s Lawrence County, Alabama, where the mountains are more like hills, or, like a far-off friend reminding us, “I’m here.” Inside the county, the small town of Oakville boasts two outstanding parks and museums. One park is the Oakville Indian Mounds Park and Museum. TheContinue Reading
February is Black History Month. To honor that history, Appalachia Bare will endeavor to reveal the true tale of a Kingdom once nestled inside Appalachia’s beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. The story begins with a group of emancipated slaves who journeyed to find a place of their own and wound upContinue Reading