DOCUMENT RESUME ED 313 198 RC 017 335 AUTHOR Arnow, Pat, Ed. TITLE Working in Appalachia. INSTITUTION East Tennessee State Univ., Johnson City. Center for Appalachian Studies and Services. PUB DATE 88 NOTE 41p. AVAILABLE FROMNow and Then, CASS, Box 19180A, East Tennessee State University, Johnson. City, TN 37614-0002 ($2.50). PUB TYPE Collected Works - Serials (022) -- Creative Works (Literature,Drama,Fine Arts) (030) JOURNAL CIT Now and Then; v5 nl Spr 1988 EDRS PRICE MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Coal; Employment; Essays; Geographic Regions; Interviews; *Mining; Occupations; Personal Narratives; Poetry; *Work Experience IDENTIFIERS *Appalachia; Appalachian People ABSTRACT This journal issue focuses on a variety of Appalachian occupations, particularly but not exclusively, coal mining. The lead article is an interview with John Sayles about his movie, "Matewan." Sayles sees the Matewan massacre as a great movie theme, "like a classic American Western...but with a difference--the violence was collective, and it was political." The afterword to Matewan, the Battle of ,.air Mountain, is the subject of Denise Giardina's novel, "Storming Heaven." In an interview Giardina says, "I see coal as a curse." She envisions Appalachia without coal as Vermont or New Hampshire, clean and prosperous. The magazine also includes profiles of coal miners, a farmer, a rug hooker, and a shoeshine man; poetry about mining and Appalachia; and photos of past and contemporary Appalachian workers. An interview with a traditional farmer explores the place of the worker who resisted modernization because "hillside farming and all didn't suit a tractor." Films about novelist Harriet Simpson Arnow and the Banner Mine disaster, books about making "Ma,.ewan" and southern cotton mills, and television shows about the Mud Creek Clinic and the Frontier Nursing Service are reviewed. (DHP) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. 5.1fauther 1 "PERMISSION TOnewoudtTHIS U.S. OFPARTNEVIT Of EDUCATION. MATERIAL HAS SEEN GRANTED BY Office of Educator's' Rtsearch and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) Pa+ Av-1,0,0 /Ths'TMsdocument has been reproduced as from the person or omatfizahon ongmahng It 0 Mmor changes have been made to miorove reproduction oualdy TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES Pants of mew or opirtons stated in thd docu- ment do not nectssanly represent official INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)." 0E141 posMon or policy BES1 COPY HVAILHIA.1 "Now, I didn't make no baskets back when I was able to work. Maybe one now and then to use. Just now and then. I didn't have time to look atabasket. Needed one, made it. Or somebody, one of the neighbors wanted one, I'd maybe make one." Jesse Joshes, SO, has spent most of his life working his Scott County, Va., farm. During the last 15 years, he's cut back on his farming and begun devoting more time to the only slightly less physically denstiding process of producing fine Appalachian white oak baskets. Jones fells the white oaks he needs, prepares the splits and does all the final weaving. His work has been featured in John Rice Irwin'sBaskets and Basket Makers in Southern Appalachia. Now and Then Contents. Editorial Board COLUMNS 2-3Closed Eyes 17 Ron Johnson With this issue we welcome five new members to our editorial board. They joinRobert J. FEATURES' Reerement Living 17 (Jack) Higgs. Marat MooreandRita Quillen,our charter members. The editorial Where .the Rubber Meets Sheryl Nelms board provides us with a generous supply of the Road Our Minister's Other good ideas, writing and encouragement. Our John Sayler 5 new advisors are: Heaven ..... .23 - Bert Allen,associate professor of Itifarat Moore Randy Oakes psychology at Milligan College, Milligan, Tenn., was the guest editor of our "Appalachian Fighting 'Sack Diamond Jenny *5. .29 Veterans" issue. A Vietnam veteran himself, he Denise Giardina Jone HickS has worked with other Vietnam veterans and Tim Boudreau with exprisoners of war. This year he is working at the Veterans Administration Medical Center The Runner 36 at Mountain Home, Tenn., in a project for Lives in Coal 11 Georgeann Eskieuich Rehberg homeless veterans. 37 Ed Cabbelldirects the John Henry Memorial Mary Alice Basconi Onions 3( Foundation in Princeton, W. Va. Through the Kelly Cogswell foundation, he publishes Block Diamonds Another Side ..... 14 Magazine and puts on the John Henry Folk Carol Moore and JenapRockett Festival (this year to be held in Pipestem, W. Va. REVIEWS September 2.4). He teaches Appalachian Studies Photos by Kenneth Murray at Concord College and is working toward his Harriette.Simpson Arnow doctoral degree in history at West Virginia Dr. Enuf is Still here . 17 1908=1986 .24 University. He was the guest editor for our John Hart "Black Appalachians" issue. film-by-Herb E. Sm!th Pauline Cheek'sAppalachian Scrapbook is "I never did change Robert J. Higgs published by Appalachian Consortium Press. She has studied the history of the rug hooking things here" 20Black Coal Miners industry that sustained the economy in the Jane Woodside hi America- 1930s near her home of Mars Hiil, North bY Ronald L. Lewis 26 Carolina. (and has written a story about it that Majestic ....... _22- appears on page 35). She was the guest editor Ed Sniidderly G.E,NeaSrnan and for the "Appalachian Childhood" issue Lany.Makes - Mary Chiltoskeywas the editor of our Letter from a Writer 24 "Cherokee" edition. She has been a teacher and Harriette Arnow CnOvicts,,Coali. and librarian in Cherokee, N.C., for more than 40 Banner Mine Tragedy years. Over the years she has collected folklore, which she has published in books including Hooking Past to Future. .33 by Robert David Ward and Cherokee Cook lore and Cherokee Plants and Pauline Cheek William Warren Rogers.27 Their Uses. Jim Odom- Fred Waageteaches English at East Appalachian WorkOut. .34 Tennessee State University. He is the author of Tony Feathers Thinking in' Pictures two chapbooks: Minestrone and End of the World: California Stories. He has served on the by John Styles 28 publishing staff of the Frimds of the Earth. POETRY Richard-Blaustein published and edited the literary magazine Second Growth and is founding editor of Now Ain't No Pie Jobs 4Storming Heaven and Then. Jenny Galloway Collins by Denise Giardina 29 Discussion at Age Seven. .4 Laurie Lindberg =1 =1 =1 Georgeann Eskieuich Rettberg Like a Family The Strikers 12 by Jacquelyn Dowd Hall . Staff Joseph Barrett and others . 30 Director - Richard Blaustein Marie Tedesco Associate Director - William Cook the answer is blowin' Editor - Pat Arnow in the wind 12Mud Creek Clink 31 Poetry Editor - Jo Carson Bob Henry Bober video by Anne. Johnson Research Associate - Jane Woodside Mary Swaykus Support Staff - Carolyn Cerrito, Ruth Working Mother. 13 Frontier Nursing . .31 Hausman, Margaret Liu, Terena Rita Quillen Slagle, Kathy M. Smith, Cathy video by Anne Johnson Whaley and assistance from Summer of 1908 13 Jo Ann Crawford Allison Puranik Glenn McKee Kingsport, Tennessee ©Copyright by the Center for Appalachian Fixing Supper 13 by Margaret Ripley Wolfe 32 Studies and Services. 1988. Suzanne Clark Edward L. Ayers SBR No 130-024-87 Now and Then/1 edialikg, involvement. in et consulting projects From the and service to public schools. All of this has Editor been like casting When John Sayles' coal. mining bread upon the movie,Matewan,opened in New York waters; the Center and other large cities in the fall of has grown and 1987, I heard wonderful things about f )unshedbecause it. This independently produced movie of the support it brought to life a dramatic moment of has given to its West Virginia coal mining history and faculty members was a crusading union film. and fellows. I was thinking about calling Marat Today, however, Brenda Wilson, coning department, LeowFerenbach, Moore, an ex-coal miner who is now a Johnsoi /City, Tenn., 1973. despite its record reporter for the United Mine Workers of accomplishment, of America'sJournal,hoping she might the Center for Appalachian Studies be able to track t?own the filmmaker From the and Services is at a critical point of for an interview. Before I could get development. Excellence costs money, around to it, she called me. She said Director and the requests for support we are that she had already seenMatewan receiving will soon outstrip our This latest issue ofNow and Thenis three times, it was a great film, and resources unless we can build up a she had interviewed John Sayles and going to press just as we are in the substantial endowment for the CASS midst of putting together our budget wondered if I might like to have that Fellowship Program. Preparing a for Now and Then.You bet. and action plan for the fifth year of the typical book manuscript costs between Center for Appalachian Studies and John Sayles is not the only artist $600 and $1,000; publishing a major gaining recognition for focusing on the Services. At times the work has book or phonograph record can cost seemed endless, but there have been coal mine wars in West Virginia in the between $5,000 to $10,000; major 1920s. Denise Giardina's nationally plenty of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards films can cost much more. during the past few years. There is acclaimed novel StormingHeaven Publishing a magazine of the quality covers that same time and place. nothing more satisfying, from my point of Now and Thenis not an of view, than to work with talented, Giardina, who lives in Eastern inexpensive proposition, either. If you Kentucky, also sees the parallels creative people and to see promising haven't subscribed yet, I urge you to ideas become exciting realities. We between now and then.