appalachia kerry when she was little, my mom’s family had a cabin in the blue ridge mountains, only a couple of rooms. they’d leave their shoes outside by the back door in the evening, and one morning she was stung by a scorpion that'd crawled in there overnight. she likes to tell that story. that’s why i don’t leave my shoes outside, or if i do i tip them over before putting them on my feet. i haven’t been there since i was a kid, when we’d go visit the youngbloods in roanoke, when ella was still alive. they lived in a house on top of a hill and from their porch you could see the mountains and the roanoke star, shining bright like some appalachian hollywood sign. one time we went to see the star and there was a petting zoo up there, and in the petting zoo was an enormous pig, black and coarse-haired. my mom had a thing for pigs. she sat by the fence and touched its nose and they grunted back and forth at each other and i laughed until i cried. it seemed like they had some kind of spiritual connection. ella was a doctor. she wore her hair in a bun on top of her head and when she let it down after work it reached the middle of her back. dark brown faded to gray, the shade of ash in a snuffed-out campfire. she had cancer, several kinds, was in and out of remission i don’t know how many times. her husband david grew peppers--bells and jalapeños and habaneros. he would go pluck a habanero and eat it raw right there, in one bite. he claimed it didn’t burn at all. he was lanky and had a sharp face, a photographer and a biker like my dad. there are pictures of the four of us kids sitting on their motorcycles, pretending to ride. peter was little enough to sit on the tank. the youngblood boys were loud and messy and sweet. i remember david always joking and teasing, though after ella died he stopped. he also stopped riding and taking pictures and became a history teacher, sold peter one of his bikes. i think it made my dad sad to know they’d never ride again together, though he never actually said it. people think of appalachia as a sad place, full of hollers and junkies. there are hollers and junkies but there’s also music and stories and people like the youngbloods. there’s a sense of depth and history that’s different from anywhere else i’ve been. hundreds of years ago king charles shipped poor people from northern ireland and the scotland lowlands to america to work earth they could never afford to buy. everyone called them human waste and trash. the wasted people, the scots-irish, climbed up into the mountains where they made their own language and music and spirits. they still speak that language, because they only know each other. it’s easy to hide up there, in all those nooks and crannies. that’s how my mother’s family wound up here so in a way i suppose you could say i came from trash. maybe that’s why it seems like such an old place to me. 220210 what's it to you? who go blather from