Today winds up my series on the book It’s Not My Mountain Anymore which was written by Barbara Taylor Woodall. If you’ve been keeping up with the series-you know how much I enjoyed the book. I loved the funny heart-warming stories about Barbara’s childhood days and family members-but the book also has some meat to it.
Barbara discusses what she calls the The Deliverance Stigma-an issue that is close to her heart. Time distanced me from the movie Deliverance and I never even seen it till I was grown and married. For me the space of time lessened the sting with which the movie whipped others from Appalachia. But the often sad light native Appalachians are shown in-is something that stings my eyes every time I see or read about it.
Another subject Barbara touches on is the changes that have come to our mountains during her lifetime. Major change has come in my life span as well. Some of the change has been good some bad-just like in every other part of the world. Appalachia has-is-and will always be changing.
But the goal of folks like me and Barbara-is to celebrate as much of the culture and heritage of Appalachia as we can-and even more importantly-give it to the next generation so they can value it the way we do.
Back when I tried my hand at promoting the Blind Pig in a larger way than I do now-I always thought some fancy writer would take notice of the juxtaposition of a new fangled blog discussing and sharing old time recipes-folklore-music-memories-stories-gardening with a worldwide audience. None of the folks I pointed it out too thought the fact was especially interesting-but I still think it’s fascinating and amazing all at the same time. I have no interest in going back to the days of outhouses-yet I do firmly believe many of the old time ways fit perfectly in our modern day lives.
Below you can read my interview with Barbara Taylor Woodall-and if you leave a comment on this post you can be entered in the giveaway for the book It’s Not My Mountain Anymore.
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Barbara, for years you have dedicated your life to Appalachia in one form or another-do you think it’s been in vain or can you see the fruits of your labor?
One of the biggest fruits of labor is hiking with kids who remember what they learned about preservation from prior trips up the mountain sides. Don’t harm the lady slippers, never litter, yellow root will help a stomach ache…they know trees by name and their use…then to see the joyous inspiration on young faces having climbed to the top is priceless to me, for the future of the mountains are in their hands. I tell them heritage is precious, without it none of us would be here.
Where can people find your book?
If they buy from the website, www.itsnotmymountainanymore.com it allows more money to bless those who preserve our traditions like, “Catch the Spirit of Appalachia” and “Foxfire”. I will autograph books from the website. They are the same price as Amazon, but authors get very little from Amazon sales. Kindle editions are also available.
Do you plan to write other books?
BooKleggin’ is a hard business. I might buckle down this winter. I’ve joked, my next book will be, “I Ain’t No Preacher But…” God speaks thru nature, in fact He’s “super-nature.”
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Don’t forget to leave a comment for a chance to win Barbara’s book. Giveaway ends Monday November 12, 2012.
Tipper
Tipper,please put my name in the hat for the book drawing.I just wanted to share with you something my mom used to say.When referring to someone who was very poor,she would say” they dont have a pot to pee in or a window to throw it out of.” I always thought it terrible until I realized one day that they took their chamber pots to the outhouse in the morning ha ha.
Sometimes the old ways are the best. Let’s hope they’re always remembered!
I still care about the old ways too, and like you I don’t much care for using an outhouse or a coffee can!
I would really like to win a copy of this book!
I WOULD LOVE TO HAVE BARBARA’S BOOk.
JOHNIE T. ARANT
Tipper, I would love a copy of It’s Not My Mountain Anymore, While going to college at WCU I loved to hear the stories of the surrounding mountains and th epeople who lived there.
I always get so excited when I find a great book about the Appalachian region. I can’t wait to read this one.
I love this kind of book. Please enter me in the drawing.
I would love to win! makeighleekyleigh at yahoo.com
This book sounds wonderful., I love the Foxfire series. The cookbook is one that I use a lot. Thanks for these posts about this, Barbara Gantt
I’d really like a copy of IT’S NOT MY MOUNTAIN ANYMORE, so count me in the drawing, please! If I win, it will be unusual, because I’ve seldom ever been the recipient of a “drawing.”
My Dad’s family has roots in Rabun County, GA from way back, so I am especially intrigued by Barbara’s book and can’t wait to read it! I have visited there several times, and love it, feeling there is always so much to learn- so much treasure hidden in the past of those mountains.
I will take note of the small percentage author’s earn from Amazon (didn’t realize that), compared to selling direct.
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed these posts and I can’t wait to get that book and read it.. She tells it like it is, just like you..
Sure has made for interesting reading. I will get this book sometime.
Ironic, but often “outlanders” are more interested in local history than many of the natives, it seems.
Most Historical groups in these mountains of NE Ga. have a good many non-native members.
Maybe it’s that most natives know the real “history” with its many back-stories and personal detail, having lived it. Outlanders can only know the big picture reported by media, local and regional and from written accounts. They must rely upon anecdotal accounts for anything further.
I’ve really enjoyed the series that you wrote from Barbara’s book, Tipper. Please put my name in the drawing.
I never knew authors didn’t get what they really deserved for a sale of their book on Amazon…I will now have to rethink that option! Thanks for that:)
Tipper,
What I meant to add to my earthquake comment and forgot until I had already sent it…
Barbara’s right God speaks thru nature, and here today he was “super-nature”! Tell Barbara she just has to write that new book about nature!
Thanks Tipper,
I hope that was all of it and we don’t have any aftershocks…
B-I didn’t feel it-but other people in my area did!
Blind Pig The Acorn
Celebrating and Preserving the
Culture of Appalachia
http://www.blindpigandtheacorn.com
Hi Tipper, I met and married a young Air Force man in 1955 from Harlen Co Ky.I was from the flat farm land of Wi.I found a dear Big Mom and Family in those Beautiful Appalachia Mts.Richard past in 1958,but the Appalachia Mts.its people and the memorys they gave me are more vivid with age.Keep up the wanderful writing you,Barbara Woodall and many others are doing for the Appalachia Mts.,its history and its people!God Bless Jean
Tipper, what you and Barbara do IS fascinating and amazing, and you inspire the rest of us to do the same in our own small realms. If the wider world can’t appreciate our traditions and values it is their sad loss.
I believe you have to know where you came from to really know who you are. The Culture you sprang from is an integral part of you, but too often we don’t grasp that as young people. We look for it later in life, but it is a fleeting thing. With the passing of our elder family members, we may find ourselves with large gaps in our history. When Grandma passes, her recipes go with her. I can trace my family tree no further than the names of my great grandparents, and know absolutely nothing else about them. My Ma never knew her grandparents, they are buried in Italy. We asked Ma a lot of questions her last few years, but the questions we didn’t think to ask, and the ones she couldn’t answer, are likely to never be answered. While we have elders, we need to ask them about our family histories.
Tipper–For Ed Ammons and indeed all your readers. You are ALWAYS doing an author a great favor when you order the book directly from them. You also do yourself a favor because you can get a signed and inscribed copy.
I’ll give an example from my own experience. A year or two back I did a book, “Carolina Christmas,” with the University of South Carolina Press (I didn’t write it, except for one chapter on traditional Christmas recipes my wife and I did–it’s a collection of the Christmas writings of Archibald Rutledge, S. C.’s first poet laureate). Someone who buys the book from me means I make almost half of the list price. If they buy from Amazon I’ll get about seven percent of the list price. That’s 40+ percent difference.
For authors, Amazon is a huge near monopoly, and I’m sufficiently mountain stubborn to refuse to sell them those of my books I have self-published (I’ve only done three this way but will do most of my books from now on on a self-published basis).
Too late for Ed this time around, but I’m sure Tipper will feature other books in the future, and I’ve already urged her to provide direct contact information for the authors whenever possible.
Jim Casada
Tipper, and all,
Well if it ain’t the hawks and no outhouse…It is an earthquake…
Scared the pee-diddy out of me..
I was minding myownbusiness..doing a little readin’ when the house started shakin more on the left side..The vases, what-nots were moving to the point I thought they would fall over. The hurricane lamp shade and globe shook on the stand. About the time I realized what was happining and started to jump up…it was over. It happened here at 12:08PM EST…
I finally called WBIR in Knoxville and they said it was a 4.something centered in Kentucky.
I’m telling you I wouldn’t want a 4.something close by..Yikes..cause I live in East Tennessee off hwy 70…
Forget all that other stuff, grab
your little black book, dust it off, ’cause I think we are goin’ to need more that lights, water and an outhouse!
Did anyone else feel it?
Thanks Tipper,
I’ve enjoyed this series very much. I would love to have the book.
There has always been a ‘dumb farmer’ stigma, as well. Having written many features over the decades about Maryland area farmers, I know they used GPS to plant looong before it became popular for navigation in cars; their dairy cattle wore collars with digital chips to dispense the individual feed ration looong before digital media came into use; they regularly use high level mathematics for planting, harvesting, storage and sales; and they have understood and employed the science of genetics to advance the quality and production of livestock. You can’t be a ‘dumb farmer’ and make it in agribusiness. Old ways mix with new technology and farmers seem to be able to balance the best of both. I would like to read Barbara taylor Woodall’s book. I’m glad she brought to attention that authors receive more if the book is puchased through them rather than third party sources.
Tipper,
I have enjoyed all the series you
have recently posted. Barbara is
a great writer. The recent storm
that hit New York, New Jersey,
Connecticut and other states joining proves just how our folks
from Appalachia spring into action
to help in time of need…Ken
G’day, Tipper; The recovering Yankee here…
You may find this hard to believe but outhouses were not uncommon in upstate New York in the 40s and 50s, even in the 60s once you got away from the cities. My grand-dad had one at his cabin on the banks of the Erie Canal; the walls were papered with post cards, many of them from places like Virginia, Kentucky, Arkansas and Tennessee depicting the “Hillbilly” with the long triangular black beard, the ‘o’ in the middle of the top of the triangle for a mouth, floppy, torn hat and the ever-present long gun with the side-lock and ram-rod, and the jug with the three X’s. Much light was made of still in the woods with no explanation other than “Hillbillies made likker”, never mentioning the lack of passable roads, or any roads at all and that ten dollars worth of corn could be transported in liquid form where a wagon-load of corn on the cob could not go. Admittedly, I went along with the stereotype until I got down here and learned the real story and a lot of lessons, it seems like thousands of lessons, in getting along in the world and with its people.
More on outhouses: A friend in East Kentucky told me that his neighbor had bought a new double-wide mobile home and had it set up on his lot, also newly bought; the guy from the health department came to do the perk test and said “Too bad you set the trailer up, you ain’t gonna live here, the ground won’t absorb what comes from the septic tank.” The man didn’t argue much, he moved into the trailer anyway; he also made a long-term contract with the Johnny-On-The-Spot folks in Ashland, who came and set up a porta-potty on his place and come regularly to service it. No Yankee nor any Atlanta folks woulda thought of that.
Deliverance? Won’t go there. Ever! Folks would see me with my banjo on my knee (or git-tar) and ask me to play the tune, I’d refuse. Hate the song, despise the movie for what it did to us.
Maybe I shouldn’t complain, if that’s what keeps the upscale Yankees from moving in down here in Southwest Georgia.
Tipper, thank you so much for sharing this book with us. I added it to my Amazon wish list. I wonder how it works if I go to her website and add the book to my wishlist using their toolbar button? LOL! Maybe I will win it, and then it won’t matter! 😀
My grandparents grew up in Western NC they had to leave to find work but they kept their roots and ways of their youth.They taught them to their 4 kids .I was teased as a child for the way I talked and did things,
I now know why and I am proud to say why.I love to read anything that keeps me in touch with my roots even when my grandparents left 110 years ago.I feel like part of me is home everytime I see my mountains.I pray it never looses its special magic.
And Yeah, since my book is on its way, could you put my number from this giveaway on your next list. Like doubling my odds.
I finally figured how to order the book online and now you tell me the author doesn’t get as much since I ordered from Amazon. And I could have had an autographed copy for the same price. That’s the story of my life. I have a chronic case of the Gotta Have Its!
Tipper,
I loved this book and will waiting patiently for the next one..
Does anyone know how to dig and build an outhouse. Where is the bast place to put it, how deep, etc.etc…Might just need to know that one in the future.
Until then, does anyone know how to drain there well holding tank and water heater to use the water for flushing, etc. until the electricity is back on? Do you fill the bathtub with water, when anticipating a hard freeze and snow storm..? Do you have a second source of heat, electricity..These are the modern things to do…Not counting the ways of old should it get that bad again…Can you dress a deer, rabbit, squirrel, chicken, hog or beef if your family was starving…or do you have extra storage of canned food that doesn’t have to be heated. Remember the Irish potato saved Ireland from famon! What about sterno or those little gas camping cans for minimal cooking…
Can you prepare in a heartbeat a room for the family to stay to conserve heat and electricity if you have it…?
I know one doggone thang, that hawk, falcon, or owl….will be starvin’ that I told you folks about yesterday, cause the netting is up and my chickens are back out in the run…
Thanks Tipper,
Thanks Barbara…lover the book!
If Barbara ever writes her book “I Ain’t No Preacher But…” God speaks thru nature, in fact He’s “super-nature.” I would like to know about it. It, like her present book both sound very interesting. After the drawing I will probably be buying her book.
This book and the ones to come, sound like very good reads.
Tipper, “many of the old time ways” ARE perfect for today. For one reason, they are based on the Lord’s way which is always right. John C. Campbell also loved Appalachia and worked his whole adult life to correct the mis-information that abounded. So, you’re “in Good Company”. Had it not been for the vision of him and his widowed wife, Olive, I would not know the real Appalachia–or the Blind Pig Family. And, I’m better off for knowing both. I think John would say to you, “Thanks for all you do and NEVER give up”. I would agree with him.
TIPPER
I GREW UP IN THE COUNTRY WE HAD A OUTHOUSE UNTIL I WAS 19 YEARS OLD
GOT MARRIED AND MOVED TO TOWN. WE
HAD A INDOOR BATHROOM FOR THE FIRST TIME.I SURE WOULD LOVE TO
HAVE THE BOOK I LOVE READING ABOUT OLD TIMES. I THINK YOU ARE GREAT PLEASE DON’T EVER STOP DOING WHAT YOU ARE DOING.
I have finished the book, I saw many similarities to my experiences growing up. The same attitudes and actions of the older people. It saddened me to read of the changes to her home, just as the changes to my home now make it a strange place to visit. Tipper remove my name from the book give away. Give someone else a chance to read this fine book.
Living the “old way” isn’t so much about the outhouses and the carrying in wood or coal to heat the house, but rather about the people from the mountains and rural South. They had a quality about them that I don’t think that you will find anywhere else. It doesn’t take much to make them your friend and a lot to make them your enemy but whichever one they are, they will be staunch in their feelings. I grew up poor but only in material things. There was so much family and love around me that I never knew that we didn’t have money to buy things. I wouldn’t take anything for my childhood. The book sounds wonderful. Tipper, your stories are unsurpassed and if they were strung together in just the right way you would have a best seller. Your style of writing reminds me of the Fanny Flag books that I have read.
I too am concern about much of the ways of Appalachian life being lost to modernization, many things my Father and Mother were taught are not passed on to me because they didn’t have to use them when raising my brother and I, now we move on to another generation and the things I was taught are not used because it’s just less convenient or less time consuming to do things the modern way instead of the old ways, but if ,, just if , we had to go back to use some of the old ways many of us would have to visit a library or read a book some where just to survive,, “scary”.. Hank Williams Jr had a song out several years ago entitled Country Boy can Survive, I’m not so sure anymore, our Power can be out for a few days and folks are ready to kill each other, ( no means of survival)…SAD..
I’ve got to get Barbara’s book. My Mother and Father were born and raised in North Georgia. I grew up visting my GA relatives and I am familiar with so many of the places she writes about.
Margaret
Love this….love Appalachia.Live in South-Southeastern KY…would not want to live anywhere else. Our ancestors had a “rough” life physically.They have “smoothed out the road for the ones that followed.Thankful for my roots and where I live. Proud to be a Hillbilly.
Benny, I grew up in Lawrenceville and remember the Woodall name. Don’t know about the moonshine connection. I remember Charles Woodall who was my age. Don’t know if his family was the same “set”. When I was a child in the early sixties, the sheriff went to prison for carrying empty jars for moonshine. Everyone loved him. My family was brokenhearted. I saw him a few years ago. He said my daddy was one of the few people that didn’t turn his back on him. It meant the world to him.
Barbara’s comment, “the future of the mountains are in their hands. I tell them heritage is precious, without it none of us would be here,” really struck a chord with me. I’ve really enjoyed your comments/review of her book and plan to get a copy. I understand your and Barbara’s distress in how your region is portrayed. I feel we often get the same sort of treatment in Oklahoma.
Barbara, please do write your next book. The title is too good to not have a book to go with it! God is “super-nature” and the first church was the outdoors.
My husband always said you could be closer to God being in woods or near the water — so I think “I Ain’t a Preacher But..” would be a book I’d definitely find inspiring — I hope it gets written
Barbara, I’m a descendant of the Stonecyhers, Corns, and Carters of Rabun Co. Could we be long lost cousins? llc,lol Can’t wait to read your book!
Some day, what we do now will be the “old days”. While they were living them, our ancesters thought what they had was “modern”. It is important to keep track so later generations will understand thier history and heritage.
Many thanks to Barbara, Tipper, Jim Casada, and all who make such an effort to keep our Appalachian heritage alive. Deliverance was bad, but the Wrong Turn movies have done more to portray mountain folks as grotesque inbred monsters. It is politically incorrect to show any other culture in a bad way, but seems our unique Appalachian culture is always fair game. I guess movies that portray hardworking, independent, and very interesting cultures just don’t sell.
God certainly does speak through nature, and I just love to go out and see his beautiful handiwork in our hills and mountains.
I knew some Woodalls from WVA who lived in Lawrenceville, GA. Jerry was the oldest and Ross the younger. They had brought with them a trade they had learned from their grand daddy, makin’ moonshine. I don’t know how much they made but they owned four drive-in theatres and one indoor theatre. I moved about 18 years ago and haven’t heard from them since.
Change is inevitable, but I also long for our rich cultural heritage in Appalachia to be remembered and celebrated. The book and your blog help in that. We must share our ways and memories with our children and grandchildren.
I’m not really from Appalachia but the hills of Kentucky where I was born share many Appalachian habits and traditions and pride. Will have to order and read her book.
Oh, I love that title …I Ain’t no Preacher, But. With a title like that she’s bound to write another book.
A big thanks to Barbara for the book. Her perspective is straight from the soul.
Tipper, I’m with you, I’m not interested in using an outhouse. I do, like you, love a lot of the old ways and old values that you preserve every day in the Blind Pig.
Thank you Tipper and Barbara!
I haven’t gotten Barbara’s book yet. I will do that. She is truly a person of worth in Appalachia.
Tipper I share your feelings about “Deliverance”. Hollywood seems to have this convention in their movies. If there is a racist, a bad sheriff, a corrupt polition, or some other decadent or sadistic character in a movie, they always seem to live down south.
Barbara is a voice for Appalachia and a true daughter of the mountains. I believe at the end of the day your efforts in these things of Appalachia will also stand along side hers! You both are great in my mind. Had a teacher tell me once that true art can only come from ones’ heart. Both you women have met this requirement.
This sounds like a great book, I would love to have it. The Fox fire series was also great and also the Fox Fire magazine .