The Red Flannel Rag

never totally comfortable in the Shenandoah Valley community. As anyone can

imagine, this was not a pleasant position from which to face each morning of my early

life.

Even to this day, sixty years later, I frequently feel the contradictions that

growing up and living in two different cultures inevitably brings. Most of my life now is

spent in the mainstream American culture; however, my heart remains, at times, deeply

embedded in the early tradition of my Appalachian community.

When spring comes every year, I yearn to make a vegetable garden; and, as

strawberry, cherry, and blackberry season roll around, I long to go pick, process, and

prepare for winter pies and biscuits and jam. Vegetable canning season is difficult for

me to pass through without “puttin’ up” some tomatoes and green beans. A year a go, I

bought pork tenderloin from the grocery store, borrowed a pressure canner, and “put it

up” for the cold winter months ahead. As I went through the process of canning the

pork, I thought about opening a can of tenderloin on Sunday mornings and making a

pan of gravy to eat over homemade biscuits. On the practical level, I know I don’t need

to hunt and gather to survive but, gathering and preserving for the cold weather months

is still a part of who I am today.

My connection to Appalachian tradition shocks me at other times. Not long ago

my brother, Warnie, told me a story about one of my uncles. Dad had shared the story

with him when they were in the mountains cutting wood one day. It so happens that my

uncle avenged the death of Tom Crawford, who, as I said before, was shot by a revenue

agent while he was making moonshine.

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