|
A is for Appalachia! The Alphabet Book of Appalachian Heritage Short Life Story Birth As all life stories must begin, mine began with the birth of a premature baby girl born to Bob and Oberita Hager in May 1949. I have no idea why I was in such a hurry to make an entrance into this world, but I’ve been taking big gulps of life ever since. The Challenge & My Mother It was as an infant that I challenged my mother for the first and last time. It was my custom to drink a bottle of milk at bedtime and then stand in my crib, hold my empty glass bottle by the nipple, dangle it over the side of my crib, swing it side-to side, and then gleefully drop it on the wood floor below. Naturally the sound of glass shattering on my bedroom floor immediately brought my beautiful young mother into my room. After many nightly warnings from my mother to stop dropping and breaking my bottles, the night came when I was handed my very…last… bottle. My mother warned me sternly that the bottle she was giving me was my last one and that there would be no more if I broke it. I drank my bottle. I stood in my bed. I looked at my mother standing in the doorway. She returned my look and warned me not to drop my bottle. I teased. She was not amused. I dangled my bottle over the side of the bed. My mother gave me a second warning. I continued to swing the precious bottle. Our eyes locked. Then… I dropped… my… bottle. Crash! It broke into hundreds of glistening, jagged pieces, once again scattering to the four corners of my room to be picked up by my mother. The loss of that last bottle provided me with my first life lesson: My mother said what she meant and meant what she said. Thus began the mother-daughter dance in which my mother took the graceful lead and I gratefully assumed the role of her partner; it was a partnership kept in perfect rhythm until her death in August 2005. I followed her lead, observed her wisdom, was awed by her successes, learned from her instruction, delighted in her company, and loved her fiercely. She once told me that there was nothing I could ever do to make her stop loving me. I believed her. And that belief has made all the difference in my life. Elementary and High School As you can imagine, my life story doesn’t end in my infancy, but continues on through elementary school and high school in the small town of Hamlin, West Virginia where I had aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents with whom I shared a small-town Appalachian experience. I went to church on Sundays –a must- sang in the church youth choir, cheered in elementary school, played saxophone and twirled a baton in high school, was selected to go the West Virginia All State Band, played softball every summer, played as much basketball in school as a girl was allowed to play at that time, and got a huge crush on my future husband, Jim Pack. Oh yes… and let me not forget the nights my dad and I practiced my broad jump at the ball field by the lights of his car. Dad and the Chicken Coop My dad literally, all by himself with the help of my mother, built the first house we lived in when I was a toddler. It was built on the side of a hill and we called it the chicken coop because… well, it looked like a chicken coop. The living room was two stories tall and my upstairs room was open with only a half-wall that allowed an adult to look over the railing into the living room below. I describe this to you so you can picture it in your mind when I tell you about my Uncle Bill. Uncle Bill Uncle Bill, my mother’s baby brother, came to live with us to finish high school while I was still a preschooler. I thought he was the greatest thing since pockets because he was a teenager, because he was so fun, because he was really good to me, and because… well… he was Uncle Bill. He would often dress coat hangers and dangle them over the balcony of our henhouse (another name we called the chicken coop) and put on plays while I sat on the floor in the living room below. I can remember clapping my hands with joy, not wanting the plays to end. I loved him dearly. Still do. Uncle Bill continued to live large in my life as he encouraged me as a writer throughout my years in middle school and high school. It was only natural when he began his doctorate degree in Appalachian Studies, that I also became interested in his interests. In the dedication for A is for Appalachia, I dedicated the book first to Uncle Bill for the love he has always given me, the encouragement he has given me as a writer, and the push he gave me to take an interest in my own rich Appalachian heritage. Mamaw and the Country Life It was at Mamaw’s, my mom’s mother, that I really got to experience the rural way of life. I loved wading barefoot in the creek and picking blackberries while visiting with Mamaw in the country. It was also at Mamaw’s that I learned about canning, picking corn and other garden vegetables, treating chigger bites, getting water out of the well, and picking grapes in the vineyard. Mamaw made the mistake of telling me that she would cook as many green beans for me as I would pick so I made a practice of picking green beans out of the garden first thing every single day. (Fresh green beans are my very favorite food.) But I hid around the corner of the house when Mamaw went to the barn to kill a chicken and I tried real hard not to learn how she wrung its neck, chopped off its head, and then came in and boiled it so she could pluck its feathers, chop it into pieces and then cook it. Deciding I Was a Writer I was in second grade when I decided that I was a writer. I liked to write poems and I frequently wrote poems, which I’m sure, went something like this: Roses are red, Violets are blue, Fill in the blank with whatever you want to. One day my teacher wrote at the top of one of my poems, “Dear Linda, This is very good. You should keep all of your poems.” When I read what my teacher had written, I sat tall in my small wooden chair, straightened my seven-year-old shoulders, and decided right then and there that I was a writer. It was also at that very instant that I decided that one day I would write a book. The Teacher After graduating high school and deciding that children are what God does best, I decided to become an elementary school teacher. I attended Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, KY where I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Education and a Master of Arts in Education. I taught elementary school in West Virginia and Kentucky for twenty-two years and I was presented the Ashland Oil Teacher Award from Kentucky’s Governor Paul Patton. Grandmother and Mother My very favorite thing in the world is being a grandmother to my beautiful, artistic Elleigh. She’s full of life, bouncing with energy, effervescent with giggles and laughter, and ready at the drop of a hat to dress up and perform in front of an audience. I adore her. But I also adore her mother and her Uncle Josh, my own two wonderful children, with whom I am most, most pleased. The Common Thread The one common thread that has wrapped itself snuggly around me since my first refreshing gulp of life is my love for family and place. The lovely bow in which that velvet thread is tied is the freedom to write, to share, and to communicate in written form the thoughts that fill my head, my heart, and my very life. Write about what your know and what you love.
|