"Now"

Some Other Looks at Who We Are

Johnson County, formed in 1843, lies in the Eastern Coal Field. It is and always has been a hardscrabble place in which to live. The region shares more similarities with its neighbor, West Virginia, than with the lush, prosperous, bluegrass area of Central Kentucky. Coal mining shaped the economy and the lives of Eastern Kentuckians from the early 1900’s until the mid 1950’s, the era in which most of my story takes place.

Headlines:

Thirteen Miners Trapped in Sago Mine

Two More W. Va. Miners Die

Bloody Riots in Matwan Mark Union Activities

County boys, a recent PBS documentary, profiles the coming of age stories of two boys from Eastern Kentucky as they confront the limited opportunities available to them. www.pbs.org

Early sections of this book have been likened by writer’s group participants to Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House in the Big Woods” for the glimpses into America’s past.  Swimming Upriver does recall a bygone era but it employs more current emotional themes to advance the story.

“The Thanksgiving Story” by Earl Hammer, with its spin-off television series, “The Waltons”, shares the Appalachian setting and characters in a large, growing family.  The technique of adult narrator (John Boy) is similar to the adult daughter (Jewel) reflecting on her journey to adulthood in Swimming Upriver.  This book contains darker, more emotionally riveting events.

“Rocket Boys” by Homer Hickam, has much the same feel of a community with definite mores and customs.  Its setting in West Virginia is geographically and culturally similar to eastern Kentucky.  Both economies were based on a single resource, coal. The ethnic stock of the inhabitants is the same.  Swimming Upriver takes place during an earlier time frame and conveys cultural information that will soon be lost as those who remember pass away.  To view his works: www.homerhickam.com

“Creeker, A Woman’s Journey” by Linda Scott Derosier is a memoir set in the same time period and locale as Swimming Upriver.  As a psychologist, she shares this author’s educational background and uses it to decipher relationships and understand her need to grow beyond the hills.  The second half of her book takes place after she leaves, whereas Swimming Upriver is set almost entirely in Kentucky.  www.lindascottderosier.com

“Muddy Branch Memories of an Eastern Kentucky Coal Camp” by Clyde Roy Pack humorously describes the times and culture of the coal mining region where he and I grew up during the days of World War II, the emergence of television,  the Elvis phenomenon, and outward migration.  His book can be found on www.amazon.com

“Night Comes to the Cumberlands” by Harry M. Caudill originally published in 1963, continues to offer insight into the people, the culture and the external forces that shaped the plight of the settlers of this “dark and bloody land”. www.harrycaudill.com