This Side of the Mountain

This Side of the Mountain George Brosi January 2006 marked a high point in television coverage of Appalachia . Not only did live TV crews cover the Sago Mine disaster in West Virginia for hours at a time, but also the Public Broadcasting System's series, Frontline, carried a six-hour special over three days called "Country Boys" which followed the lives of two Floyd County, Kentucky, teenagers. Although it is risky to respond to the Sago coverage because we must be sensitive to those who lost loved ones, responding to "Country Boys" is even more perilous. This special focused on two young men, Cody Perkins and Chris Johnson, who are still very much alive. Almost four years have passed since the show was filmed, and Cody is now married to Jessica Riddle and studying at the local technical college to be an air conditioning and heating technician. Chris is hoping to become a strip-miner. Any criticism of the show can easily be viewed as criticism of them, their families and their circumstances, and I have no intention of doing that. People like Chris and Cody live everywhere, and what is good about "Country Boys" is that, at best, it did encourage sympathetic understanding of their problems which do deserve public attention. What is disconcerting is that viewers might too easily conclude that the segment of society depicted in "Country Boys" is all there is to Appalachia . The founder of Appalachian Heritage, Al Stewart, grew up in a holler near where this show was filmed, and Mike Mullins, who, as Director of the Hindman Settlement School rescued Appalachian Heritage in 1982, grew up in a nearby coal camp as did Dr. Claude Crum who contributed a story to this magazine last year. The two written responses to the show in this issue amply demonstrate that many extremely articulate people can easily been found very close at hand. Did viewers realize that the woman who was raising Cody has a second cousin, Leslie Kendrick, also raised in Floyd County in Cody's generation, who was a Rhodes Scholar? And what about the natural environment? How ironic that beautiful Jenny Wiley State Park is so close by, yet never made its way into the camera's lens. In some ways what was most galling, however, was the way the show depicted Christianity emphasizing those silly signs and "music" which many people, myself included, can't appreciate. What a contrast viewers saw between this depiction of Appalachian religion and the live coverage of the Sago Church, an integral public facility where neighbors were comfortable in both grief and exaltation . The Sago miners were hard-working people, doing a job that keeps the lights on for the rest of the country. They were earning a good living for their families. And, speaking of families, the Sago coverage demonstrated the strength of mountain families unlike "Country Boys." The Sago miners worked for a non-union company that jerked them around like tiny pawns in an international energy game. Their problems were clearly caused not by their own sorriness, but by forces beyond their control. The Sago coverage showed a supportive, selfsufficient community, whereas the Frontline program depicted support coming only from a school run by an outsider from Brooklyn. I'm not trying to brag on the coverage of the Sago mine disaster. I think it could have been much more hard-hitting and illuminating. I just believe that the contrast shows what a biased view those who watched "Country Boys" received. Sure, it is an oversimplification, but for decades nowAppalachia has been depicted mostly in two contrasting ways: either as a region whose problems are the result of outside exploitation or as a place where the "culture of poverty" of the people themselves has doomed them. Discerning viewers of the Sago coverage could clearly see how that proud community was treated shabily, but those who watched the PBS special might be tempted to blame the victims. Those who produced "Country Boys" had the time and resources, but evidently not the inclination, to do a much better job. ...