When you think of Appalachia, what do you think of?

Im conducting a poll and I would love to hear everyones response! The question is, "When you think of Appalachia, what do you think of?" Thanks in advance for your responses!

 

Some of the most stunning natural beauty in North America.

 

Beautiful country.

And of course battling banjoes, bad teeth, blue people, "squeal like a pig!" and the worst parts of Deliverance.

 

One of the poorest regions in America that its people are forgotten dismissed and ridiculed called ignorant, rednecks and inbred and because they happen to be the wrong color it makes it acceptable to do so

and here is proof of my point

if those same type of vile remarks was made against Hispanics or Blacks he would quickly be labeled as a hateful bigot but because the people of Appalachia is vastly white religious and mostly conservative it is acceptable and even politically correct to do so

 

I think of how Democrats and their environmentalists destroyed the coal mining industry there, and how a once proud and independent people now must depend on the government for their survival.

 

I think of the men I knew who got on a bus every Sunday evening to ride all night to Flint, Michigan, where they worked on the line all week and lived in a company dormitory. Then, on Friday night, they're right home to Kentucky. I asked some of the men one night was they waited for the bus to leave why they didn't just pack up their families and move north. One shook his head and said, "They want us to work but our families ain't welcome."

Now, it's Mexicans doing the same damned thing. They come north and do the work liberals won't do but their families aren't welcome.

Thomas Sowell quoted in an essay a paragraph about people who wouldn't work, were drunkards, would steal anything, had children they had no intention of supporting, and were violent and love to fight. Like most people, I thought the paragraph was talking about blacks in the northern cities but it was actually written in the early 1950s about "hillbillies" coming north looking for worth.

 

Color in the autumn
Old timey Bluegrass

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...y-central-appalachias-coal-industry-is-dying/

Why have Kentucky and West Virginia lost 38,000 coal jobs since 1983? For one, coal mining has become increasingly automated in recent decades, particularly as companies have shifted to techniques such as mountaintop-removal mining, which are less labor intensive. (An EPA crackdown on mountaintop removal in 2009 actually led to a small bump in coal employment in West Virginia.)

Another big problem for Appalachia's coal industry has been competition from cheaper, low-sulfur coal out West — particularly from Wyoming's Powder River Basin. Here's a good chart from Scientific American's David Wogan showing this shift:

On top of everything else, Central Appalachia's coal now appears to be running out, as many of the thick, easy-to-mine seams have vanished. The Energy Information Administration estimates that coal production in eastern Kentucky and West Virginia will soon be just half of what it was in 2008, plunging from 234 million tons down to 112 million tons in 2015.

 

As a young boy our family would take many trips back and forth between St. Petersburg where we lived and Toledo, Ohio where dad's family lived. This was in the early 1960's and Tennessee and Kentucky interstate 75 and other systems were non-existent. Driving the two lane roads through the Appalachians was always exciting for me.

I have 8mm home movies of mom and dad riding their big Harley through the Appalachians. This was right after I was born in 1954 as mom told me that I stayed with grandma while they rode up north and back on it. The Harley was a big blue decked out thing, like the Road King of today. Of course the movies have not been viewed in a long time, too fragile.

Mom rode on back shooting the 8mm movies of the hillbilly shacks which were quite "hillbill-ish". Later dad would tell us he would see a family out on the front porch and he would yell," Hey dotsie!" Don't ask me what that means.

 

And you missed the part where President Obama promised to bankrupt the coal industry?

 

Really good article on the people of Appalachia,

White Ghetto

 

Well okay, its where my family is from though.

The people of the appalachians are not strictly conservative though, they have been abused by big business and have a history of violently rebelling against the abuse. They have illegally confiscated and vandalized the property of those business and killed and otherwise physically threatened their agents and workers.

Last I checked the conservative handbook thats called looting. Is there some loophole where people from the mountains are allowed to behave this way?

 

I think of great music and a very hard way of life for the people who live there.

 

Great article.
Appalachia, one of my favorite hiking grounds...God's country..., although I swore never to set foot into Harlan County ever again...too depressing and sad. I have gotten to know many parts of Appalachia rather well and made many friends along the way. Its a part of our country that doesn't take to strangers easily, esp the ones that stick out a bit. I
And it is no wonder, strangers aren't always kind, take more than they bring and judge this American Ghetto rather harshly. Most don't complain, don't call for an organizer when wronged, don't complain about stereotyping and bigotry, go their own way and do their own thing. Proud people, set in their ways.
Something I always wondered...how much do we really know about each other, how much do others know about us? It doesn't matter whether those from abroad or those just down the street think about America. We don't walk a mile in each other's shoes, but perhaps we should....just for a while. Perhaps we would judge each other less harshly, don't you think?

 

well...I think of beautiful mountains, a culture of poverty and Loretta Lynn.

 

I'm considering the Appalachia for my next trekking holiday [even if Iceland is in pole position now]. Just because of their natural environment which is simply astonishing.

Sooner or later [with my new biometric passport] I will get a visa for the US and I will be there ...

By the way: why don't you make more marketing and advertising about the touristic potentials of the region?

 

To answer the OP, I think of rugged beauty of the land contrasted with true poverty.

 

moon shine and poverty.

 

You might want to visit Kentucky and see for yourself....My wife was born in Pikeville, deep in the poverty zone. The are has been extremely backward and poor for as long as anyone can remember...Coal production has very little to do with it.

If you get divorced in Kentucky...I she still your sister?

 

Call me strange, but I seldom think of Appalachia, But I'd venture that the few times I do, I think Appalachia.

 

"Appalachia" proper runs from NY State down through Mississippi, a lot of people don't realize that.

 

That's not Appalachia. That's Georgia.

 

"Battling...banjoes"

You can't even get the rhetoric right.

 

Dueling banjoes?

Rhetoric? Its a music piece for a banjo duet, how is that rhetoric?

Misty Mountain Hop, get it right pop.

 

Home, since I live here.