I am from country roads, Crisco and my grandfather’s violin. From the shadow on the wall. The smell of wood and rain. Grape crape myrtles, rhododendrons and muddy water.

I am from Sunday afternoons and farmers. From Sullie, Virgie and Boo. The storytellers and the hand wavers. The hush and the holler.

I am from tent arbors and cathedrals. ‘Down by the river’ and myrrh.

From Rock, West Virginia. Mountaineers and Miners. Dumplings and beans.

I am from Pa - who saw the mountain fall. From my brother - and a broken neck.

I am from my grandmother’s wardrobe. A book of gold and red. Of were and is and….

Don’t forget.

Buffy Holt

“I seen my daddy die.”

He was a handsome man with handsome eyes. He wore suits and bowler hats and bright red ties. His boy would take after him. But he’d never know it.

“A man’s gotta be in bad shape to do that sorta thing.” Darrel said it. “Makes you wonder if he hated himself or the world or the God that put him in it.” Pa pretended not to hear.

“Maybe he didn’t know he was doing it. That thing he done.” He had wondered about it before. I could see it in his face. “Maybe he just thought about it and it happened and he didn’t know how.”

I let him talk because he wanted to.

“I was just a boy.”

Because maybe no one ever had before.

“You know, you tell yourself what you have to. What you need to to get by. Then you leave it alone. ‘Cause if you think about it too much. Live it too often. You get stuck in your head. And that ain’t no good.”

Pa fidgeted and stood up. “You want some coffee?”

Some things are hard to say. Even harder to have said for you.

Maybe I was doing him wrong. Listening to what he didn’t want me to hear. But Darrell asked me to.

“Now, I got some stories for you sweetheart.” Darrell smiled and laughed and looked at his brother. “I’ve done a few things, and I’ve seen even more. I’ll tell ‘em if you write ‘em down.” I said I would. “No sir. Ain’t no man ought to be ashamed of the things he’s done. ‘Cause that’s what makes him.”

Darrell died two years ago. I waited too long and he was 75 and in a hurry. Every time I think about him, I think about the boy who watched his daddy die and what he told me in the Dairy Bar on Route 52.

“You just remember that young fellow in the red tie, and know the Lord makes a way. That’s what I do.”

Ten things I’ve told my mother since moving abroad.

1. No, you can’t send me a gun. Guns are illegal. Nope. Not even a little one. Knives are illegal too. Pepperspray - still illegal.

2. Quit moaning. I haven’t paid less than $6.00 a gallon for gas (It’s now $13. June 08 ) since I’ve been here (1998). It’s $8 ($17 - June 08) on the Continent.

3. The Queen of England is also the Queen of Canada and Australia. No I’m not making it up.

4. So, I went to Paris yesterday. For lunch. Yup. Just because.

5. A guy tried to mug me this afternoon. Broad daylight. I sucker punched him in the face with my mobile and ran.

6. The building I live in is almost as old as America. And it doesn’t even have a plaque on it.

7. I know you like your spoon. But eating with a knife and fork is just so much easier.

8. See. Three cheeseburgers and three cokes. Ninety dollars. And you thought I was exaggerating.

9. I kissed an entire rugby team today. It’s just like, what these Europeans do!

10. No, my flatmate isn’t American. She’s Northern Irish. Really. No. No. Now how can she be Appalachian if she’s not American?

I never made no liquor myself. But I seen my share of stills and always knew who run ‘em.

When I was a boy I helped hide it all the time for Uncle Poodle. I dug pot holes all over that mountain. Filled ‘em with ten gallon jugs of mountain lightening.

He didn’t put his own youguns to it. They liked it too much. Why, I seen ‘em boys drink shine from a paint bottle and fall over half dead. Get up the next day and do it again. They’d a drunk themselves to death if they had their way about it.

Like poor ole Johnny Overbaugh. He siphoned off some second run from his cousin’s still. Got in a greed and tried to get it all down him so he wouldn’t have to share. Ten seconds to drink it and ten seconds to die. That stuff bust his heart. It’d do that to you. I seen it happen. More than once.

Lucky Uncle Poodle’s boys didn’t know where their daddy kept his.

He trusted me though. Cause I didn’t like the stuff. Never touched a drop in my life.

Hezekiah Bishop
Puckett Ridge Road, West Virginia

City work means city pay. That’s a good thing.

This month I’ve been up to my eyeballs in facials and Decleor. Expensive shoes and tailored trousers. There’s satisfaction in spending cash that’s your own.

May 27 is special for me so I’ve been liaising with my jeweler and a personal shopper at Fendi. A cushion cut rock (something blue me thinks) or a bag-and-more. What to do?

I did the selfless thing (which, to be honest, I had always planned to do) and chose the Italian Riviera - because Tall Dark & Handsome has a thing for Italy and May 27 isn’t just about me.

Then Saturday came. And with it, a tax bill…..with four zeros on the end…..count ‘em….four…..before the decimal.

The Riviera will have to wait.

I’ve been playing this afternoon. With photos and some really cool javascript. I’ll flesh the site out better later…add more of my lifestyle photographs. In the meantime….

Pics by an old Canon A40, a newer Canon Ixus 500, a Nikon D70 & a Sony DCST9. And one from a really old (i.e. cira 1998ish) Nikon film camera.

If you’re bored and have nothing better to do, visit the links below for a few examples, or just scroll through the blog. It’s not that long. Really. And don’t forget to single click on each of the pics. Else you’ll miss my little display.

bone cold
that black lung
boo
i

Charlie come home in a box. A flag that weren’t ever his on top. Strangers in strange clothes brung it up the hill. Sit it on his momma’s porch. Like it was somethin’ that ought to be sittin’ there, instead of somewhere else.

Like they knew.

The night before he left, before they come to get him just like they come to bring him, he leaned up against that porch and strummed his guitar. Wearin’ that funny kind of voice. The kind that makes you scared even though it ain’t.

All night he sung. I don’t remember what.

I took the screen off my window, hung my feet out over the sill, and watched the moon on his face from across the road. All gray and blue and empty.

Maybe he died in the dark. No body ever said.

But I never seen him again. And I ain’t felt right for it yet.