Chapter 12: Appalachian Wisdom

When I was a 19-year-old sophomore at Eastern Michigan University, I considered joining a college caravan to Kentucky to deliver food to families living in “one of the most impoverished places in America.”

I didn’t go.

I was on the EMU junior varsity basketball team, and our first game conflicted with the trip. Back then, I wouldn’t let anything conflict with basketball.

Six months later I moved to California to work at a summer camp for blind and deaf children. I met a girl who’s now my wife, and Kentucky became part of that “Things I wanted to do, but didn’t” list.

So when my former student, Amal, encouraged me to meet the teachers he’d met while doing volunteer work in Appalachia when he was in college, I headed north from Nashville.

I arrived in Pikeville on July 3rd. Its rolling, tree-cloaked hills are lovely and calming. I figured I’d hang out alone on the 4th of July, then meet up with Traci, Rusty, and Mary the day after the holiday.

But Traci wasn’t having it. She said the three of them would meet me on the morning of the 4th. “You came all this way!” My offer to pay for breakfast was vetoed by Rusty under the condition that, “If I pay, we pray.”

Rusty led a beautiful and comforting prayer — for me. He asked God to look after me, keep me safe on my journey, and that “you find what you’re looking for.”

__________

One thing I wouldn’t find is something Traci Tackett, Mary Slone, and Rusty Justice (love his name!) have — a sense of home. I’ve never felt like I had a home.

After World War II, Dad left the Army Air Force (it became a separate military branch in 1947) and worked for J.C. Penney until he retired. But the stability he found with his employer didn’t carry over to our lives.

When Dad got a promotion, we moved. He started as an assistant manager at a small store in a strip mall in western Pennsylvania. He ended as the manager of a large store in a giant shopping mall in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I was born in Columbus, moved to the Philadelphia suburbs, to the Baltimore suburbs, to the Cleveland suburbs, to the Detroit suburbs.

Like my Army brat wife, I never felt anywhere was home.

From what Traci, Mary, and Rusty told me, that’s not the case in hollers of eastern Kentucky. There, where their extended families have lived for generations, everyone has a strong sense of place and home. They value their place in the world.

Pikeville — “the heart of Appalachia”

Traci’s vital lesson was about that. Her poem is perfect. I’m betting that every student who ever had her loved her class and loved her.

If I lived in Pikeville, I’m pretty sure Rusty would be a close friend. He’s kind, altruistic, smart, and he works hard at life — four of my favorite qualities.

And he’s a divergent thinker. His answer to “What’s the most vital lesson we should be teaching?” was unlike anyone else’s. Sure, why not combine “The Beatitudes” with physics?

I used to wonder aloud to students that I saw no reason why we couldn’t be both religious and scientific. That our brains are capable of being both subjective and objective. That there can be faith and there can be facts.

Rusty says Appalachians’ lack of social capital (and the poverty resulting from it) is tied to a failure to link a knowledge of the greater world with an understanding of their local geography. An appreciation of what’s right in front of them.

If I could live my life over, I would spend way less time thinking the grass is greener on the other side. I constantly thought I could find a better place, a better job… a better life when where I was and what I was doing was already pretty great. Restlessness can be motivating, but how often is a strength also a weakness?

Rusty began his vital lesson by saying he’s not a teacher. He meant that he doesn’t have a teaching credential, and that he doesn’t spend his days in a school classroom. But I consider him a teacher. He’s the co-founder of Bit Source, a successful tech company in Pikeville, where he mentors local high school students. And in the short time we were together he definitely taught me.

Rusty solidified something I’d been thinking for a while. That the best teachers aren’t always found in traditional schools. They’re often people like Rusty — wise humans living impactful lives, willing to share. So why not seek them?

__________

Does it make any sense to say someone you’ve spent only a single day with is one of your favorite people on the planet? Maybe not, but that’s how I feel about Mary Slone. She’s charming, empathetic, and kind. I want to return to Pikeville not just to watch her teach, but to be in her presence.

Mary is that teacher kids won’t forget. They’ll continue to return to and learn from her decades after they’ve left her classroom. She radiates the joy and hope that she desperately wants her students to have.

Especially now when so many kids don’t have either, people like Mary are precious.

“It’s hard for young people to imagine a future,” she says, “because they can’t see themselves in it.”

How terribly tragic is that? When I was in high school, all I could think about was my future.

The other thing Mary said that I won’t forget is, “We listen with our eyes.”

We do. But not always well. I’ve got to be better at making meaningful eye contact when people are talking to me.

While listening to Mary’s vital lesson, I almost stopped recording before her sweet parting message. I’m so glad I didn’t.

What she suspected was true was true. I began my drive feeling super cynical about the world and so many of the people in it. By the time it ended, I had more hope and more joy than when I left. If either start to wane, I’ve found that rewatching Mary’s lesson is restorative.

__________

I drove out of Appalachia feeling good but envious of Traci, Rusty, and Mary’s faith. I wish I had as strong a spiritual belief as they have. There’s got to be great security and peacefulness knowing in your heart that things that aren’t seen and can’t be scientifically proven are … real.

I don’t have that. It’s not that I don’t believe. But it’s not that I do, either.

My mom was profoundly religious. In her later years, she went to church virtually every day. I believed her faith was as strong as anyone’s. Then, when she was in hospice, during one of our last talks before she passed, she expressed doubt. “What if there isn’t…” she wondered. “I’m scared.”

Here’s what I said: “Mom, one of the biggest fears we humans have is the fear of the unknown. And what is more unknown than what happens when we die? It would be really weird if you weren’t afraid.”

She gave me no indication that it eased her anxiety or softened her fear. But it’s all I could come up with.

There are infinite unknowns. So it makes sense that, to some degree, we’re all terrified. I know I am.

So what do we do?

For me, it helps to immerse in the companionship of people like Traci, Rusty, and Mary. Deep talks with cool people assuage my fear of the scary unknown.