Memories of Breece

Memories of Breece by Grace Toney Edwards I remember very well the day I met Breece Pancake. It was in Chuck Perdue's cluttered little office that served then as the archive for the Virginia Folklore Society and the University of Virginia's folklore collection. Second floor of Wilson Hall, just off the south end of the lawn, within sprinting distance of the Rotunda, the heart of Mr. Jefferson's University . Hallowed ground, that was, for those of us in English graduate studies who knew and revered the scholars, both past and present, who walked those halls. Yet, both Breece Pancake and I had roots in a culture vastly different from this bastion of academic traditionalism . Breece and I were both Appalachians , he from the mountain state of West Virginia, and I from the foothills of North Carolina. Chuck Perdue introduced us with a remark about our common interests. I found out that Breece was just starting a Master's program in creative writing, and he found out that I was working on an independent study to finish up my Ph.D. coursework. As soon as he discovered that my project was to develop an Appalachian novels course centered around the role of women in mountain culture, he jumped to help me. When he asked what West Virginia writer I was including, I had to admit that I didn't have one, for I didn't know much then about West Virginia authors. He suggested a new novel written by a young, recent graduate of WVU: Chuck Kinder's Snakehunter. "Sure," I said, "I'll read that if it fits my theme. Where can I find a copy?" "Borrow mine," Breece offered, "I'll bring it tomorrow." And so we established something that day, Breece and I. Though we were strangers, we felt a bond I guess, caused perhaps by our mountain roots, or maybe by a shared sense of our differences from the majority of our peers in that place. Breece told me some things in our first conversation that I would never have confessed to anyone when I was brand new "on the Grounds." He said he felt out of place at UV; he thought he ought to go back to West Virginia. He said, "I can't sit downstairs in the lounge with those people (the graduate student lounge). I don't know what they're talking about. This (Chuck's office ) is the only place I feel comfortable." Boy, could I empathize! I had thought those exact thoughts a year earlier, and I still felt that way at times. But I tried to reassure him, to convince him that time and routine would alleviate some of the fears and insecurities. And I think it helped him for the moment anyway. I know it helped me to hear Breece confess his doubts, for I was undergoing my own personal trauma at the time. I was pregnant that fall with my first baby. Here I was, past the "flower of youth" and facing the strange new role of parenthood. As my baby gestated, I hurried to finish my doctoral coursework, which I had fearfully plunged into a year earlier, wondering if I could make it after ten years out of the student's desk, wondering if I could compete with those bright young scholars from Dartmouth and Yale and Swarthmore , wondering why I was flinging myself back into this pressure pot after a decade of college teaching. Well, there was no Breece 112 for me to talk to that first year, but I did make it; and even though I still suffered doubts the day my path crossed Breece's, I guess I was in a unique position to listen to him. Whatever the cause, Breece and I became friends, although we saw each other only now and then. I read Snakehunter, savoring his advice not to let it "mark your baby." We talked about it, and I wrote about it in the massive paper that culminated my independent study. Indeed on that long November day as I labored to bear my son, I was still writing about it. In the spring my baby approached five months of...