God gave me life in the mountains of Appalachia…that beautiful, verdant, mysterious land of misty ranges, wild rivers, and honeysuckle vines…growing rampant on hillsides in the Spring sunshine…outsiders… what we hill folks call people not from here…sometimes don't understand what possesses us to stay in these mountains…where unemployment and poverty present a bleak picture…to one happening to pass through these
parts…but I know…beneath the exterior of old shanties perched on riverbeds…and on the sides of mountains too steep for a Billy goat to get a good grip on…lies the heart and soul of the reasons why some of us…including me…have a love so fierce for this most beautiful and wild of lands….it's what brought my ancestors from across the sea over two hundred years ago…to make their way here to something they had been searching for all of their lives…my French forebears from Alsace-Loraine…a place so mountainous that our ancient hills resemble only small mounds besides them…they left their homeland and loved ones they were to see nevermore…and set sail west toward a land that had been whispered about amongst them…a land where the air was clear and the earth so green…with plentiful game roaming freely among the pines…that's what my fur-trading ancestors sought…and relief from the rule of French kings that persecuted them for their religious beliefs…my Scotch-Irish ancestors came for that same reasons…to escape the atrocities that the Crown of England was trying to impose…on a proud and independent race that wanted nothing to do with being ruled…they were farmers…lovers of the land and the fruit it bears…arduous, months-long trips were made to the new world…arriving in Canada and the Ports of Philadelphia and Baltimore…working off indentures…a form of oppression that chafed at their very soul…but clinging all the while to the knowledge…they were close to finding a place to call home forever…West Virginia was were they settled…although it wouldn't be called that until a century later…when a bloody, taking up of arms divided not only the nation…brothers never spoke to one another again after it was all over…it is appropriate that this state…the only one lying entirely in Appalachia…was borne out of strife and blood…the people that called it home were resilient enough to withstand the awfulness that war brought…it culled the weak ones amongst us…who packed their belongings…and moved West to other mountains and rivers more welcoming…my family stayed…they became farmers, miners and merchants mostly…blue-collar folks…as educated people say…no matter what they were called…they carved a living…a hard one…out of these mountains and strips of land lying along rivers…that ran over in the spring floods…they endured foreigners arriving…looking to exploit the great, mineral wealth that lies beneath these imposing hills…they suffered fires, floods, accidents, premature deaths…from being worn out from the back-breaking work they toiled at day after day…they endured…that endurance is etched in each and every one of the people and places that I have loved…they were and are all beautiful and precious to me…because of the way they conducted their lives…living with grace and dignity…content with having enough to get by…being happy with a little and not too much…sustained by faith in God…in one another….marching to the beat of their own drummer…and being true to their mountain hearts…

In memory of all my loved ones that have went before....

God gave me life in the mountains of Appalachia…that beautiful, verdant, mysterious land of misty ranges, wild rivers, and honeysuckle vines…growing rampant on hillsides in the Spring sunshine…outsiders… what we hill folks call people not from here…sometimes don't understand what possesses us to stay in these mountains…where unemployment and poverty present a bleak picture…to one happening to pass through these
parts…but I know…beneath the exterior of old shanties perched on riverbeds…and on the sides of mountains too steep for a Billy goat to get a good grip on…lies the heart and soul of the reasons why some of us…including me…have a love so fierce for this most beautiful and wild of lands….it's what brought my ancestors from across the sea over two hundred years ago…to make their way here to something they had been searching for all of their lives…my French forebears from Alsace-Loraine…a place so mountainous that our ancient hills resemble only small mounds besides them…they left their homeland and loved ones they were to see nevermore…and set sail west toward a land that had been whispered about amongst them…a land where the air was clear and the earth so green…with plentiful game roaming freely among the pines…that's what my fur-trading ancestors sought…and relief from the rule of French kings that persecuted them for their religious beliefs…my Scotch-Irish ancestors came for that same reasons…to escape the atrocities that the Crown of England was trying to impose…on a proud and independent race that wanted nothing to do with being ruled…they were farmers…lovers of the land and the fruit it bears…arduous, months-long trips were made to the new world…arriving in Canada and the Ports of Philadelphia and Baltimore…working off indentures…a form of oppression that chafed at their very soul…but clinging all the while to the knowledge…they were close to finding a place to call home forever…West Virginia was were they settled…although it wouldn't be called that until a century later…when a bloody, taking up of arms divided not only the nation…brothers never spoke to one another again after it was all over…it is appropriate that this state…the only one lying entirely in Appalachia…was borne out of strife and blood…the people that called it home were resilient enough to withstand the awfulness that war brought…it culled the weak ones amongst us…who packed their belongings…and moved West to other mountains and rivers more welcoming…my family stayed…they became farmers, miners and merchants mostly…blue-collar folks…as educated people say…no matter what they were called…they carved a living…a hard one…out of these mountains and strips of land lying along rivers…that ran over in the spring floods…they endured foreigners arriving…looking to exploit the great, mineral wealth that lies beneath these imposing hills…they suffered fires, floods, accidents, premature deaths…from being worn out from the back-breaking work they toiled at day after day…they endured…that endurance is etched in each and every one of the people and places that I have loved…they were and are all beautiful and precious to me…because of the way they conducted their lives…living with grace and dignity…content with having enough to get by…being happy with a little and not too much…sustained by faith in God…in one another….marching to the beat of their own drummer…and being true to their mountain hearts…

In memory of all my loved ones that have went before....