A Funny Feeling

sketch and poem and observe the man's face and his surroundings and feel the unspoken words. Dan Short has also drawn several illustrations for this issue. And there are Warren Brunner photographs. Pictures are, indeed, worth ten thousand words. I am extremely pleased with all the different parts that make the whole of this issue. There are many voices in it, using a variety of styles of expression to illuminate universal truths and the Appalachian heritage. I hope you like it as much as I do. This is a new editorial venture for me and one of great responsibility. I am confident of your support and good will in helping to keep Appalachian Heritage alive and growing. It has had and will continue to have a solid bedrock of heritage to sustain it. Appalachian Heritage has been and will continue to be a regional magazine, featuring regional writing and regional viewpoints. We are now, I believe, moving into a new era of Appalachian literature. We will be adding new layers to the heritage for generations to come as we help create and reflect the contemporary consciousness of Appalachia. This magazine survived the difficult transitional years of the early 1980s. In the decade of the 1970s there were more than two dozen good Appalachian periodicals, but today only a few are left. Thanks to Albert Stewart's perseverance and to you, loyal subscribers and friends, Appalachian Heritage is alive and well. We will continue to provide a home for writers and artists and their fresh material. We want established writers to think of us first when they have new manuscripts. We also intend to be an outlet for new writers and visual artists. In the last decade there has been an outpouring of professional scholarship concerning the literature and culture of the region. Before that, scholarly work on Appalachia was written by scholars from outside the region. That is changing. Now we have a generation of home-grown scholars who are bringing a new perspective to the study of Appalachian literature and culture. I want to include some of their work to complement the literary content of this magazine. I want to thank all of you (and you know who you are) for the letters, telephone calls, manuscripts, and offers of help in producing this first issue. I want especially to thank Gurney Norman who has driven from Lexington to Berea more than a dozen times to help me in the hard work of getting material ready for the press. I also want to thank founding editor Albert Stewart, who came to Berea as a consultant on the first issue, who wrote me letters of encouragement, and who gave me good advice from his wealth of experience of living with and editing this magazine for twelve years. He has also promised to stay around for awhile. The first Berea issue of Appalachian Heritage is now launched. We have many dreams and plans for this magazine's future. We invite you to dream with us and participate in the work necessary to make intangible dreams concrete reality. .· .. ttl'f A FUNNY FEELING You'll think you see her walking on the road, hunkered down in her coat like she did, that headscarf in a knot at her chin. Turn, and it'll be a stranger, some old woman from way up in the holler, trying to catch a ride into town. Or just before good daylight, half-awake, you'll swear you hear her talking in the kitchen, firing up the wood for breakfast meat and coffee. Open your eyes, house as still as death. It's a funny feeling— now I'll tell you. You don't know nothing till you've lost your mother. —Anne Shelby ...