Excerpt From Our Appalachia

Excerpt From Our Appalachia "The Cruel Choice" is a sampler (pp. 323-339) oí OurAppalachia, An OralHistory edited by Laurel Shackelford and Bill Weinberg published by Hill and Wang in 1977. The editorial choice of this material dealing primarily with welfare and migration was, in the main, an arbitrary choice; but any selection from this rich and comprehensive oral history would have, of necessity, had some aspect of arbitrariness. The only favorable argument was that so much has been said and written about the issues of migration and welfare that it would be good to let those who were intimately and vitally involved with those issues speak from their experience. This they do with— what must seem to those familiar only with the Appalachian stereotype—a surprising frankness, intelligence, human understanding. But ihe same argument and comment could be used for the other issues and talkers in this many-faceted book; for it does present the problems and issues involved in the transition of a people and area from a simpler way of life to a more complex one as the result, primarily of outside influences —missionaries, coal speculators, railroads, industry, tourism, etc.—as told by those who experienced it or were intimately acquainted with it. The idea of Our Appalachia originated with the Oral History Project at Alice Lloyd College and was completed with the cooperation of the Appalachian Oral History Project, a five-year-old, four-school consortium based at Alice Lloyd College. The other schools were Lees Junior College, Jackson, Kentucky; Appalachian State University at Boone, North Carolina; and Emory and Henry College, Emory, Virginia. The decision to use a sampler from the book rather than a formal review may be assigned to a quirk in the mind of the editor of Appalachian Heritage. Our Appalachia is now available in hard back ($12.95) or paperback ($6.95) and may be obtained from local bookstores, the publisher, or the Alice Lloyd College Bookstore at Pippa Passes, Kentucky 41844. THE CRUEL CHOICE (In 1954) at thirteen, Willie.(Will) Pennington took one look at the concretejungle that was called Cincinnati and fled home to live with an aunt in Laurel County, Kentucky. His reaction was understandable because the changes he would have been called upon to make in the city were awesome indeed. In 1956 when Will finally mustered the courage to settle permanently in Cincinnati he was adding another link to the chain ofkinfolks who had migrated there. 46 Will Pennington My mam's sister and her husband came up about '35. When they left, they left with nothing (and) caught a bus to the city. When they came back he was driving his own car, he had a nice suit on, and he had money. Surely the other people were envious of him to an extent. They'd say, "If he can do it, I can do it." I don't think (possessions and money had) really mattered to the people until they got exposed to (them). When one of their own was the one who had it, and especially when that one says, "It's nice to have a dollar in your pocket instead of having nothing in your pocket" (people's attitudes began to change). Before you wasn't exposed to it, nobody had it, and I don't think it crossed their mind too much. You'd see people in town who did have things, but "Them are other folks," and they were different from us. Now, "This is one of our folks." Today Will is a teacher and administrator at Cincinnati's PorterJuniorHigh School and lives in a modern split-level home just north of town in Sharonville. He and his Kentucky-born wife, Ethel, are satisfied with how their lives have evolved in Ohio and they have no plans for returning to eastern Kentucky where the options are fewer and the future appears dimmer. No doubt Will's attitudes toward home were shaped by earlier experiences. I was born in 1942 at Hooker, Kentucky, in a log cabin and (lived there) until I was in the third grade and we moved to Laurel County. You'd rent a farm and tend tobacco...