Beyonders: Mountain people have deep sense of pride

Published: Thursday, October 30, 2014 at 03:38 PM.

I appreciate the idea behind political correctness. It has helped the way people interact with one another and favors inclusiveness of individuals and cultures often maligned by society. Sometimes, however, it has become exclusionary.

One example of the reversal of intent has become contentious and has personal and deep rooted implications for this old mountain boy. Anything hillbilly, has become politically incorrect to a significant number of well-intended, intelligent authorities on the subject of mountain culture and society. They cite the likes of The Beverly Hillbillies, Snuffy Smith and the movie Deliverance as belittling and degrading to mountain people.

I agree that outsiders, that is, flatlanders and city folks, have often made fun of those of us from the high country. They portray us as ignorant, dirty, lazy and insular. They are correct if they include all other regions of the world. Practically every place, flat or not, includes similar elements. They also cite that mountain people talk funny, have a dialect. Every region of the country has its distinctive dialect or accent: Boston, Eastern Shore, Low Country, Charleston, New Orleans, Northern, Southern. Someone from up-north, in asking Joyce where she was from, said to her, I thought you might be from Texas, you have an accent. Whereupon my quick witted wife replied, Yes I do, and you do too, so did Presidents Kennedy and Carter. I think its a good thing.

My father, as a Christmas gag gift once gave my uncle a hand-drawn cartoon, a framed picture of a bedroom in a cold drafty mountain cabin deep in a Blue Ridge winter night, including a mountain man in Long-Johns, taking care of his necessity. He named his character Cajo Hunkenfelter. This hillbilly character has remained a family tradition for three-quarters of a century, being passed down in drawings, poems and songs through several generations. Cajo now has his own family group on my nieces Facebook page. Family members and close friends post hillbilly material there. It is a fun way for us to stay in contact, share laughs and memories of many family members now past.

I knew many mountain people who would fit the contemporary political incorrectness of the image of hillbillies. They were just people with their peculiarities as we all have. Some were the hard working poor driven from farms to the mills by the loss of the agrarian way of life. Some were enterprising and started successful businesses. Some went to war or service professions. Some were lost alcoholics. And, no, I did not know any snake handlers, except myself, a herpetologist. Mostly, the mountain people retain a deep sense of pride in being from the mountains, cherishing their traditions, even embracing the term hillbilly. This has become even clearer recently when I discovered a Facebook group called Appalachian Americans. There, one will find humor, sadness, expressions of traditions and beautiful photos of mountain life and landscape today. I especially love the old sepia images of the highland world of bygone times. But mostly the group members display pride in being mountain people, hillbillies.

Les and Joyce Brown are retired from Gardner-Webb University. They write this column each month, sometimes separately and sometimes together. The Browns enjoy reading, writing, music and anything Appalachian. Les is a potter while Joyce tries to write a bit of poetry.

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Beyonders: Mountain people have deep sense of pride