July 11, 2024 • 19 mins
Today we are very honored to have on the Smarticle Podcast, author and cultural advocate, Bobi Conn. Bobi shares her experiences growing up in rural Appalachia. Raised in a holler in Moorhead, Kentucky, Conn discusses the cultural and economic challenges faced by the region. She also shares personal anecdotes, including overcoming childhood poverty and abuse, and highlights the journey that led to her memoir, 'In the Shadow of the Valley.' Conn delves into the importance of nature, reading, and education in her path to success, offering inspirational insights into life in Appalachia.
00:00 Introduction to Bobi Conn 01:24 Defining Appalachia and Hollers 05:18 Life in Appalachia: Personal Stories 07:44 Challenges and Cultural Reflections 12:24 Journey from Appalachia to Success 17:04 Appalachian Terms Quiz 18:15 Conclusion and Final Thoughts In the Shadow of the ValleyThe Demonization of Rural America 8 minute read Appalachia
#ruralamerica #appalachia #intheshadowofthevalley #bobiconn #bereacollege #bereakentucky #appalachianauthor #author #smarticlepodcast #podcast #smarticle @Smarticleshow @BDDoble @larryolson threads.net/@smarticleshow @brand.dobes The Smarticle Podcast
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Episode Transcript
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(00:16):
Bobi Conn was born in Moorhead,Kentucky and raised in a nearby
hauler where she developed herdeep connection with Appalachia.
She has written for Salon, DailyBeast, we became big fans of hers
through her article in Time Magazine.
The demonization of rural America.
She has an incredible memoirout in the shadow of the valley.
Bobi, thanks for joining us on Smarticle.
(00:38):
Thank you so much for having me.
Okay.
A couple of things we need toclear up before we get going.
Brandon, my partner, is going toclaim his Carolina credentials,
but I've known him for 20 years.
He was born a snob in NorthernCalifornia wine country.
So no matter what he tells youtoday, he is not an Appalachian.
He's a Northern California snob.
So do we have that?
(00:58):
I'm an Appalachian.
So we say it right here.
We don't say Apple.
You tell you're not from it's likewhen somebody says Frisco, they're not
from San Francisco when they see Calit, when you say Appalachia, you just
doubted yourself, don't fall for it.
Don't fall for his act.
Okay.
I've, I feel duly warned.
Thank you.
(01:19):
And Brandon, we, I don't know, wecould still probably adopt you though.
I think so.
I think so.
So before we get to your story for mein the uninitiated, what is Appalachia?
Did I get that right?
And what is a holler?
So there's of course likea precise definition.
It's as precise as I think there is one.
(01:40):
That was set out by the AppalachianRegional Commission some time ago.
There's a lovely little map so thatyou can see exactly which counties
fall into the Appalachian region.
And, it encompasses geographicallythe Appalachian mountains that run
from, gosh, I want to say Floridaall the way through New York.
(02:01):
It could be Georgia, forgiveme, I'm not remembering where
the southern terminus is.
Northern Georgia.
Okay.
And I think, so we've gotthe geographical definition.
I think culturally it's more limitedto the eastern Kentucky, eastern
Tennessee, Eastern Ohio, probablyeven just Southeast Ohio, to my
(02:23):
understanding, and then parts of WestVirginia, Virginia, and North Carolina.
So I was thinking you were going toforget us there for a second, Bobbi.
I try not to forget anybody.
That cultural region I think hasexperienced a lot more similar
developments historically that haveimpacted the people economically and
(02:46):
in terms of Not just the economicdevelopment, but also transportation,
access to information, that sort of thing.
So the cultural region is a littleharder to define, but I think if you
come from it, you definitely know thatyou're part of it and if you're not from
it, you're probably not claiming it.
(03:09):
Just real quick then, what is a hauler?
Oh yes.
So a hauler, and this is one ofmy favorite things to talk about.
Technically, it's basically a valleybut the Appalachian geography or
topography, you have a lot of mountainswhere the mountains are the highest, and
then you've got the foothills, right?
Like, where I came from in Round County,Kentucky, the foothills are more gentle.
(03:33):
They're still pretty steep.
And between those hills You'vegot the easiest land to settle but
you don't get a lot of sunlight.
There's typically not a lot of open space,so you're not going to have giant farms.
There's often a stream running throughthere, and it has an end point.
So when you get to the head of thehuller, you can't go any further.
(03:56):
That's for us, that's where thecreek originated, coming down from
the hillsides, and it's reallybecame a really potent symbol, I
think, for the Appalachian region,because there's some kind of
hardscrabble living done in Hollers.
It's hard to eke out a living whenyou're subsistence farming, for example.
(04:20):
At the same time, there's a lotof family ties because families
often just live really closeto one another in the hollers.
You're immersed in a beautyof nature unlike any other.
It's a harsh beauty, it'snot easy to survive there.
And I think that's one of the importantpoints about Appalachia for the rest
(04:42):
of the country at large to understand.
Yeah.
So I have been very fortunate tohave been adopted by the Appalachian.
Larry likes to make fun of me.
This is where my heart is.
I love this place.
When you drive, but I tell people, I'mlike, you really want to understand it.
Take a drive up into PinevilleHarlan County, Eastern Kentucky.
(05:02):
And you, when you drive,he said, what's a holler.
You drive up on these very narrowroads alongside a little Creek and
on either side are like shanties.
All the way up and down.
So it's just, Larry says, I like tofilibuster these things, but I think it
paints a picture of what you're saying.
A lot of coal, old coal mines, notas many anymore, but growing up
there for yourself, one of the thingsthat you said in the article at the
(05:26):
time, I highly recommend everybodygo back and read this, but you had a
thing about, you were talking about.
Living in Berea, some people say Berea,Kentucky, which is a little art town.
It's an artist colony.
There's a Mexican restaurant there thatI've been to that you referenced because
it's like a stopover point for anybodydriving from Louisville to wherever.
Anyway, you talked about And that reallyprofoundly struck me because I didn't
(05:49):
get braces until I was in college andI paid for myself because I was from
my family just couldn't afford them.
So you talk about that and can you explaina little bit of that story again and talk
about how that's reflective of the typeof life that people have in Appalachia
at times that can be a reflective.
Yeah.
Basically this Mexican restaurant,they had the little coin machines
(06:10):
that you just, you can't help butlove them when you're a kid, right?
Where you could get a fake tattoo oryou can get some gum or a little toy
that's not going to be worth anythingabout two minutes after you bought it.
And then one of the things that theysold there when I was younger was
the hillbilly teeth, which that's,I believe, a trademarked name, but
(06:31):
everybody knows what I'm talking about.
When I say that I grew up with, myteeth weren't perfect at any age.
And so as an adult, that's when Ibecame aware of just like how much
having imperfect teeth set me apart.
And, I think that's a real.
(06:51):
Distinctly American trait, culturalexpectation that we don't necessarily
see in other countries like Europe,European countries, not that I'm
that well traveled, that's justmy perception, but yeah it really.
It became ingrained in me and itjust became more and more painful to
understand that when people interactedwith me and talked to me, felt like
(07:14):
they were going to notice my teethand that is one, a socioeconomic
marker because like you, nobody hadmoney to fix my teeth growing up.
And then two, it's also a cultural markerand it shows where your priorities lie.
There's.
Just not a lot of people represented inour upper echelons of culture and finance.
(07:39):
And, the movers and shakers ofAmerica don't have bad teeth.
Now, when I was writing this piece fortime, that was one of the things that
I thought about a lot because, likethe hillbilly teeth, for instance,
there's never been some big uproarwhere it's like, why are we mocking
people with bad teeth and I'm nottrying to even put down the company.
(08:03):
That person was an entrepreneur who hasmade a lot of money off of those teeth.
Probably quite a few knockoffs aswell have done well by that product.
When I look at it, tome, I don't see a joke.
I see the reminder of nothaving clean water as a kid.
(08:24):
Our water came from a well.
The well didn't work properly.
My parents had to pumpCreek water into the well.
We couldn't filter the Creekwater enough to make it drinkable.
So we knew not to get a big old glassof the Brown water to drink, but we sure
mixed it into Kool Aid, and we cooked withit and we Washed all our clothes in it.
(08:46):
So wait, can I end it upto you really quick Bobi?
Because a marker for us when you that wasthe other thing in that article was Kool
Aid My daughter asked me she's like daddy.
What's Kool Aid because I don't haveKool Aid But I said when I was a kid
That's what you had because it was cheapand you could make it and we couldn't
afford sodas and things like that Sowhen you wrote that I was like, oh that
brought me back to being eight yearsold and I You know, Kool Aid slushies
(09:08):
and, but anyway, so you would cover upthe bad tasting water with Kool Aid.
Yeah, because, Kool Aid wascheap, as you said, and, sugar
was relatively cheap as well.
Certainly a lot cheaper than agood, water filter was going to be
like the kind that it would taketo make creek water drinkable.
And it stained our clothes, all our whiteclothes were a weird shade of brown, our
(09:31):
bathtub and our sink, they turned brownover time, they were permanently stained.
So there was a poverty aspectthat was tied to why my
teeth, were messed up, right?
It was the food that we wereconsuming and not consuming.
It was the water.
It was also the psychologicalresources that my family didn't have.
(09:54):
So I've made no secret aboutmy father being abusive to my
mother and my brother and myself.
Why didn't he get the well fixed,and make it to where we didn't
have to pump creek water in there?
He was he was a drug addictand his priorities just lay
elsewhere as a lot of people.
(10:15):
Priorities do when they'redealing with mental health issues.
And then my mom, she would haveprobably, it would have fallen
to her to take us to dentistappointments and that kind of thing.
I don't remember going to the dentistuntil I was maybe 12 or 13, 14.
Something like that.
I may have gone before, but that'sthe first visit that I remember,
(10:40):
and they were like, immediately itwas taking care of cavities, I had
cavities, visible cavities as a child.
Then as soon as I had permanentteeth, there were cavities, and my
mom was reeling from trauma, likeconstant and compounded trauma.
So I understand why she didn't havethe wherewithal to figure out how to
(11:01):
get us to the dentist on the regular.
And that's the story,there's so much pain.
And a lot of like day to day sufferingthat lies behind something as simple
as like hillbillies with bad teeth.
And that I think is something that eventoday it's taken a somewhat more cruel
(11:23):
turn because people talk about methmouth and they talk about, Mountain Dew
mouth, and all these things are horrible.
It's not just the, it's notjust an aesthetic turnoff.
There's a lot of suffering.
That leads up to that appearance, andI think that we haven't challenged how
much we place value on that aestheticappearance because it's a classist.
(11:49):
These are class problems.
If.
If it was a different socioeconomicbracket with those problems, it
wouldn't be acceptable to justoffhand throw these terms about
and dismiss people in the same way.
And so the time piece really wanted tojust draw attention to and hopefully
start closing the gap between, thesort of this really disconnected it.
(12:15):
Perception of Appalachia and ourproblems and like the real human
stories and lives behind those images.
What a lot of people don't knowtoo, is that Appalachia has an
incredibly rich cultural history.
I don't know if you've been toWhitesburg to the Apple shop at
all, but just like anybody that'sever traveling needs to go there.
(12:35):
Cause it's an incredible.
Source of culture and art and write somegreat writers come out and that's my
segue to the next part is how does Girlfrom when I say girl 12 year old girl.
How do you get from Eastern?
Kentucky Appalachia towhere you are today.
It's fascinating to methat you're so well spoken.
You're a great writer You'vesaid you've published a book.
(12:56):
How does one go from a that'shaving creek water pumped into
it to where you are right now.
What's the step to that?
Thank you for the compliment.
I do appreciate that.
Think there were a couple of criticalelements that, that helped me get from
where I was to where I am, one of them,maybe the first one was really just
(13:18):
my connection to the beauty around me.
At all times, it might sound alittle hokey, but I was very, Gosh,
what's the right way to put it?
I ran around in the National Forest.
The Daniel Boone National Forestwas basically my playground.
We had a creek to play in.
(13:40):
I discovered blackberry bushes that Icould eat from just out in the wild.
I was finding deer beds and deer paths outin the woods and streams and figuring out
whether I could drink from those or not,I had this constant immersion in nature,
which showed me that subconsciously, thatno matter what I was going through in
(14:03):
my house, there were beautiful things.
Persisting life waspersisting all around me.
And I think that's, that was a reallyimportant advantage for me to acknowledge
as I was writing my memoir, becausenot everybody has that, a lot of people
suffer as children and they don't haveunspoken kind of touchstone to go back
(14:28):
to over and over, whereas it was areally profound lesson for me, and then
I was lucky enough to love to read.
So as a little kid, even I wasreading voraciously, I was reading
everything I could get my hands on.
And I think that also helps me understandthat the world I, as I was experiencing
(14:48):
it, wasn't the only possible reality.
And that again, even though lifecan feel like hell when you're a
kid and you're powerless, like youare truly just so powerless most of
the time, but that showed me thatthere's all these other possibilities.
And then all that reading eventuallyin ways led me to Berea College the
(15:13):
small town where, you know, I liveand got the Mexican restaurant.
We got a couple more now too.
Good coffee shop there too, by the way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, it's a really sweet little town.
A lot of good stuff going on.
But Berea College provides tuitionfree college education, and it
specifically looks for students inthe Appalachian region, primarily.
(15:36):
Now they do have a greatinternational program, and they
bring in people, students fromall over the country, ultimately.
But it's for low income.
Higher performing students.
And I had an art teacher who told me inhigh school that I needed to check it out.
And I said, okay, I'll check it out.
And, again, while I was writing mymemoir, that's when I really realized
(15:58):
like just how invaluable it was for meto not just get the degree but to go into
an area or into an institution where.
My curiosity and at that point, mysort of defiant attitude toward, what
is, what I'm being told, it came inreally handy when it came to learning
(16:20):
critical analysis and it became a skillfor me to hone versus just a childish
sort of reaction that I was having.
And it really set me on the path.
It was a struggle at times foryears to, to be able to emotionally
and psychologically extricatemyself from that childhood hell.
(16:42):
But those were some of the big thingsthat helped me get in that position.
Bobi, it's such a sacred story.
Thank you for sharing with it.
Thank you for putting it out into theuniverse and other people get to learn.
It's incredible.
I definitely suggest people getyour book and read all of your
stuff because it's amazing.
So thank you for sharing.
(17:03):
Thanks Larry.
Before you go, I have a game I'd liketo play because, once again, I'm not
Brandon is pretending to be from somewhereelse, but he's really a California kid.
I've got some Appalachianterms, and I want to know if
you could tell us what they are.
Alright?
Can we do that before you leave?
Okay.
What is a ball hoot?
Oh, gosh.
I have no idea.
(17:23):
Stumped you.
Okay.
What is a jasper?
I a jasper is a type of rock or mineral.
Okay.
I don't know.
What is a peck?
What is a pecker wood?
Oh that's a derogatory term thatmy father would use for somebody
that he thought was worthless.
Okay.
That's it.
And last one, once again, I just wentto the air found these is corpone.
(17:46):
C O R P O N E.
That might be a misspelling or justa shortened word for corn pone.
So yes.
So like cornbread that'sin the round disc.
That's a pwned.
That's it.
See he doesn't, he's a five, 10 whitekid from Whittier, California has no
(18:07):
concept about what you're saying, butAppalachia is a big region, lots of
different cultural things that comeout of their Northern Appalachia or
Southern Appalachia, all sorts of things.
Before you leave, Bobi, I want to say,honestly, I don't know about other people,
but one kid from Northern Californiain a small little ag town with very
similar to what you're talking about,Your story is incredibly, when you talk
(18:30):
about reading saved my life, withoutquestion, if I, when you're talking about
it, I'm getting choked up, because I'mlike, if I hadn't learned to read, if I
hadn't had teachers, that's it, because Icouldn't read until I was in fourth grade.
I tell my daughter all the time therewas just nobody to help me with remedial
reading I learned to read, and thenit was all of a sudden you realize
there's this whole world out there.
For all those kids that are outthere listening to this podcast
(18:50):
right now in poor towns all over thecountry, just know that there are,
there is a Bobi Cohen in that town.
For what it's worth, Larry, anythingelse you want to, before we go?
The book is In the Shadow of the Valley.
Bobi, thank you so muchfor sharing your story.
Hanging out with us today.
Thank you all for having me.
It's great to meet you.
Even if you're from California.
(19:12):
He is Bobi anyway, thank youfor coming on Bobi appreciate it
Bobi Conn was born in Moorhead,Kentucky and raised in a nearby
hauler where she developed herdeep connection with Appalachia.
She has written for Salon, DailyBeast, we became big fans of hers
through her article in Time Magazine.
The demonization of rural America.
She has an incredible memoirout in the shadow of the valley.
Bobi, thanks for joining us on Smarticle.
(00:38):
Thank you so much for having me.
Okay.
A couple of things we need toclear up before we get going.
Brandon, my partner, is going toclaim his Carolina credentials,
but I've known him for 20 years.
He was born a snob in NorthernCalifornia wine country.
So no matter what he tells youtoday, he is not an Appalachian.
He's a Northern California snob.
So do we have that?
(00:58):
I'm an Appalachian.
So we say it right here.
We don't say Apple.
You tell you're not from it's likewhen somebody says Frisco, they're not
from San Francisco when they see Calit, when you say Appalachia, you just
doubted yourself, don't fall for it.
Don't fall for his act.
Okay.
I've, I feel duly warned.
Thank you.
(01:19):
And Brandon, we, I don't know, wecould still probably adopt you though.
I think so.
I think so.
So before we get to your story for mein the uninitiated, what is Appalachia?
Did I get that right?
And what is a holler?
So there's of course likea precise definition.
It's as precise as I think there is one.
(01:40):
That was set out by the AppalachianRegional Commission some time ago.
There's a lovely little map so thatyou can see exactly which counties
fall into the Appalachian region.
And, it encompasses geographicallythe Appalachian mountains that run
from, gosh, I want to say Floridaall the way through New York.
(02:01):
It could be Georgia, forgiveme, I'm not remembering where
the southern terminus is.
Northern Georgia.
Okay.
And I think, so we've gotthe geographical definition.
I think culturally it's more limitedto the eastern Kentucky, eastern
Tennessee, Eastern Ohio, probablyeven just Southeast Ohio, to my
(02:23):
understanding, and then parts of WestVirginia, Virginia, and North Carolina.
So I was thinking you were going toforget us there for a second, Bobbi.
I try not to forget anybody.
That cultural region I think hasexperienced a lot more similar
developments historically that haveimpacted the people economically and
(02:46):
in terms of Not just the economicdevelopment, but also transportation,
access to information, that sort of thing.
So the cultural region is a littleharder to define, but I think if you
come from it, you definitely know thatyou're part of it and if you're not from
it, you're probably not claiming it.
(03:09):
Just real quick then, what is a hauler?
Oh yes.
So a hauler, and this is one ofmy favorite things to talk about.
Technically, it's basically a valleybut the Appalachian geography or
topography, you have a lot of mountainswhere the mountains are the highest, and
then you've got the foothills, right?
Like, where I came from in Round County,Kentucky, the foothills are more gentle.
(03:33):
They're still pretty steep.
And between those hills You'vegot the easiest land to settle but
you don't get a lot of sunlight.
There's typically not a lot of open space,so you're not going to have giant farms.
There's often a stream running throughthere, and it has an end point.
So when you get to the head of thehuller, you can't go any further.
(03:56):
That's for us, that's where thecreek originated, coming down from
the hillsides, and it's reallybecame a really potent symbol, I
think, for the Appalachian region,because there's some kind of
hardscrabble living done in Hollers.
It's hard to eke out a living whenyou're subsistence farming, for example.
(04:20):
At the same time, there's a lotof family ties because families
often just live really closeto one another in the hollers.
You're immersed in a beautyof nature unlike any other.
It's a harsh beauty, it'snot easy to survive there.
And I think that's one of the importantpoints about Appalachia for the rest
(04:42):
of the country at large to understand.
Yeah.
So I have been very fortunate tohave been adopted by the Appalachian.
Larry likes to make fun of me.
This is where my heart is.
I love this place.
When you drive, but I tell people, I'mlike, you really want to understand it.
Take a drive up into PinevilleHarlan County, Eastern Kentucky.
(05:02):
And you, when you drive,he said, what's a holler.
You drive up on these very narrowroads alongside a little Creek and
on either side are like shanties.
All the way up and down.
So it's just, Larry says, I like tofilibuster these things, but I think it
paints a picture of what you're saying.
A lot of coal, old coal mines, notas many anymore, but growing up
there for yourself, one of the thingsthat you said in the article at the
(05:26):
time, I highly recommend everybodygo back and read this, but you had a
thing about, you were talking about.
Living in Berea, some people say Berea,Kentucky, which is a little art town.
It's an artist colony.
There's a Mexican restaurant there thatI've been to that you referenced because
it's like a stopover point for anybodydriving from Louisville to wherever.
Anyway, you talked about And that reallyprofoundly struck me because I didn't
(05:49):
get braces until I was in college andI paid for myself because I was from
my family just couldn't afford them.
So you talk about that and can you explaina little bit of that story again and talk
about how that's reflective of the typeof life that people have in Appalachia
at times that can be a reflective.
Yeah.
Basically this Mexican restaurant,they had the little coin machines
(06:10):
that you just, you can't help butlove them when you're a kid, right?
Where you could get a fake tattoo oryou can get some gum or a little toy
that's not going to be worth anythingabout two minutes after you bought it.
And then one of the things that theysold there when I was younger was
the hillbilly teeth, which that's,I believe, a trademarked name, but
(06:31):
everybody knows what I'm talking about.
When I say that I grew up with, myteeth weren't perfect at any age.
And so as an adult, that's when Ibecame aware of just like how much
having imperfect teeth set me apart.
And, I think that's a real.
(06:51):
Distinctly American trait, culturalexpectation that we don't necessarily
see in other countries like Europe,European countries, not that I'm
that well traveled, that's justmy perception, but yeah it really.
It became ingrained in me and itjust became more and more painful to
understand that when people interactedwith me and talked to me, felt like
(07:14):
they were going to notice my teethand that is one, a socioeconomic
marker because like you, nobody hadmoney to fix my teeth growing up.
And then two, it's also a cultural markerand it shows where your priorities lie.
There's.
Just not a lot of people represented inour upper echelons of culture and finance.
(07:39):
And, the movers and shakers ofAmerica don't have bad teeth.
Now, when I was writing this piece fortime, that was one of the things that
I thought about a lot because, likethe hillbilly teeth, for instance,
there's never been some big uproarwhere it's like, why are we mocking
people with bad teeth and I'm nottrying to even put down the company.
(08:03):
That person was an entrepreneur who hasmade a lot of money off of those teeth.
Probably quite a few knockoffs aswell have done well by that product.
When I look at it, tome, I don't see a joke.
I see the reminder of nothaving clean water as a kid.
(08:24):
Our water came from a well.
The well didn't work properly.
My parents had to pumpCreek water into the well.
We couldn't filter the Creekwater enough to make it drinkable.
So we knew not to get a big old glassof the Brown water to drink, but we sure
mixed it into Kool Aid, and we cooked withit and we Washed all our clothes in it.
(08:46):
So wait, can I end it upto you really quick Bobi?
Because a marker for us when you that wasthe other thing in that article was Kool
Aid My daughter asked me she's like daddy.
What's Kool Aid because I don't haveKool Aid But I said when I was a kid
That's what you had because it was cheapand you could make it and we couldn't
afford sodas and things like that Sowhen you wrote that I was like, oh that
brought me back to being eight yearsold and I You know, Kool Aid slushies
(09:08):
and, but anyway, so you would cover upthe bad tasting water with Kool Aid.
Yeah, because, Kool Aid wascheap, as you said, and, sugar
was relatively cheap as well.
Certainly a lot cheaper than agood, water filter was going to be
like the kind that it would taketo make creek water drinkable.
And it stained our clothes, all our whiteclothes were a weird shade of brown, our
(09:31):
bathtub and our sink, they turned brownover time, they were permanently stained.
So there was a poverty aspectthat was tied to why my
teeth, were messed up, right?
It was the food that we wereconsuming and not consuming.
It was the water.
It was also the psychologicalresources that my family didn't have.
(09:54):
So I've made no secret aboutmy father being abusive to my
mother and my brother and myself.
Why didn't he get the well fixed,and make it to where we didn't
have to pump creek water in there?
He was he was a drug addictand his priorities just lay
elsewhere as a lot of people.
(10:15):
Priorities do when they'redealing with mental health issues.
And then my mom, she would haveprobably, it would have fallen
to her to take us to dentistappointments and that kind of thing.
I don't remember going to the dentistuntil I was maybe 12 or 13, 14.
Something like that.
I may have gone before, but that'sthe first visit that I remember,
(10:40):
and they were like, immediately itwas taking care of cavities, I had
cavities, visible cavities as a child.
Then as soon as I had permanentteeth, there were cavities, and my
mom was reeling from trauma, likeconstant and compounded trauma.
So I understand why she didn't havethe wherewithal to figure out how to
(11:01):
get us to the dentist on the regular.
And that's the story,there's so much pain.
And a lot of like day to day sufferingthat lies behind something as simple
as like hillbillies with bad teeth.
And that I think is something that eventoday it's taken a somewhat more cruel
(11:23):
turn because people talk about methmouth and they talk about, Mountain Dew
mouth, and all these things are horrible.
It's not just the, it's notjust an aesthetic turnoff.
There's a lot of suffering.
That leads up to that appearance, andI think that we haven't challenged how
much we place value on that aestheticappearance because it's a classist.
(11:49):
These are class problems.
If.
If it was a different socioeconomicbracket with those problems, it
wouldn't be acceptable to justoffhand throw these terms about
and dismiss people in the same way.
And so the time piece really wanted tojust draw attention to and hopefully
start closing the gap between, thesort of this really disconnected it.
(12:15):
Perception of Appalachia and ourproblems and like the real human
stories and lives behind those images.
What a lot of people don't knowtoo, is that Appalachia has an
incredibly rich cultural history.
I don't know if you've been toWhitesburg to the Apple shop at
all, but just like anybody that'sever traveling needs to go there.
(12:35):
Cause it's an incredible.
Source of culture and art and write somegreat writers come out and that's my
segue to the next part is how does Girlfrom when I say girl 12 year old girl.
How do you get from Eastern?
Kentucky Appalachia towhere you are today.
It's fascinating to methat you're so well spoken.
You're a great writer You'vesaid you've published a book.
(12:56):
How does one go from a that'shaving creek water pumped into
it to where you are right now.
What's the step to that?
Thank you for the compliment.
I do appreciate that.
Think there were a couple of criticalelements that, that helped me get from
where I was to where I am, one of them,maybe the first one was really just
(13:18):
my connection to the beauty around me.
At all times, it might sound alittle hokey, but I was very, Gosh,
what's the right way to put it?
I ran around in the National Forest.
The Daniel Boone National Forestwas basically my playground.
We had a creek to play in.
(13:40):
I discovered blackberry bushes that Icould eat from just out in the wild.
I was finding deer beds and deer paths outin the woods and streams and figuring out
whether I could drink from those or not,I had this constant immersion in nature,
which showed me that subconsciously, thatno matter what I was going through in
(14:03):
my house, there were beautiful things.
Persisting life waspersisting all around me.
And I think that's, that was a reallyimportant advantage for me to acknowledge
as I was writing my memoir, becausenot everybody has that, a lot of people
suffer as children and they don't haveunspoken kind of touchstone to go back
(14:28):
to over and over, whereas it was areally profound lesson for me, and then
I was lucky enough to love to read.
So as a little kid, even I wasreading voraciously, I was reading
everything I could get my hands on.
And I think that also helps me understandthat the world I, as I was experiencing
(14:48):
it, wasn't the only possible reality.
And that again, even though lifecan feel like hell when you're a
kid and you're powerless, like youare truly just so powerless most of
the time, but that showed me thatthere's all these other possibilities.
And then all that reading eventuallyin ways led me to Berea College the
(15:13):
small town where, you know, I liveand got the Mexican restaurant.
We got a couple more now too.
Good coffee shop there too, by the way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, it's a really sweet little town.
A lot of good stuff going on.
But Berea College provides tuitionfree college education, and it
specifically looks for students inthe Appalachian region, primarily.
(15:36):
Now they do have a greatinternational program, and they
bring in people, students fromall over the country, ultimately.
But it's for low income.
Higher performing students.
And I had an art teacher who told me inhigh school that I needed to check it out.
And I said, okay, I'll check it out.
And, again, while I was writing mymemoir, that's when I really realized
(15:58):
like just how invaluable it was for meto not just get the degree but to go into
an area or into an institution where.
My curiosity and at that point, mysort of defiant attitude toward, what
is, what I'm being told, it came inreally handy when it came to learning
(16:20):
critical analysis and it became a skillfor me to hone versus just a childish
sort of reaction that I was having.
And it really set me on the path.
It was a struggle at times foryears to, to be able to emotionally
and psychologically extricatemyself from that childhood hell.
(16:42):
But those were some of the big thingsthat helped me get in that position.
Bobi, it's such a sacred story.
Thank you for sharing with it.
Thank you for putting it out into theuniverse and other people get to learn.
It's incredible.
I definitely suggest people getyour book and read all of your
stuff because it's amazing.
So thank you for sharing.
(17:03):
Thanks Larry.
Before you go, I have a game I'd liketo play because, once again, I'm not
Brandon is pretending to be from somewhereelse, but he's really a California kid.
I've got some Appalachianterms, and I want to know if
you could tell us what they are.
Alright?
Can we do that before you leave?
Okay.
What is a ball hoot?
Oh, gosh.
I have no idea.
(17:23):
Stumped you.
Okay.
What is a jasper?
I a jasper is a type of rock or mineral.
Okay.
I don't know.
What is a peck?
What is a pecker wood?
Oh that's a derogatory term thatmy father would use for somebody
that he thought was worthless.
Okay.
That's it.
And last one, once again, I just wentto the air found these is corpone.
(17:46):
C O R P O N E.
That might be a misspelling or justa shortened word for corn pone.
So yes.
So like cornbread that'sin the round disc.
That's a pwned.
That's it.
See he doesn't, he's a five, 10 whitekid from Whittier, California has no
(18:07):
concept about what you're saying, butAppalachia is a big region, lots of
different cultural things that comeout of their Northern Appalachia or
Southern Appalachia, all sorts of things.
Before you leave, Bobi, I want to say,honestly, I don't know about other people,
but one kid from Northern Californiain a small little ag town with very
similar to what you're talking about,Your story is incredibly, when you talk
(18:30):
about reading saved my life, withoutquestion, if I, when you're talking about
it, I'm getting choked up, because I'mlike, if I hadn't learned to read, if I
hadn't had teachers, that's it, because Icouldn't read until I was in fourth grade.
I tell my daughter all the time therewas just nobody to help me with remedial
reading I learned to read, and thenit was all of a sudden you realize
there's this whole world out there.
For all those kids that are outthere listening to this podcast
(18:50):
right now in poor towns all over thecountry, just know that there are,
there is a Bobi Cohen in that town.
For what it's worth, Larry, anythingelse you want to, before we go?
The book is In the Shadow of the Valley.
Bobi, thank you so muchfor sharing your story.
Hanging out with us today.
Thank you all for having me.
It's great to meet you.
Even if you're from California.
(19:12):
He is Bobi anyway, thank youfor coming on Bobi appreciate it
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