by Tallu Schuyler
Saturday, January 7, 2007
Jessica told us this morning that we would be going to a country church called People’s Church here in Phillipi, West Virginia. I couldn’t wait for the wooden floors, the guitar music and the simplicity of the place. After arriving, I walked in to a newly renovated building to see lyrics of contemporary music projected onto a screen through power point. As the church band sang through the microphones, I noticed some of the walls were lined with Tyvek sheeting and many of the children wore T-shirts bearing the names of familiar television characters and state schools. This is a country church?
Country today is not what country was, but what ever was country anyway? What has been sold to me as perfectly country? I subscribe to a Condé Nast magazine called Country Living. The glossy publication offers me page after page of quaint interiors filled with antique fabrics and worn wooden furniture. It presents readers with photographs of empty, rolling land and lakes and rivers and running water that looks so easy to access. This is what I expect of country.
But having lived in rural East Tennessee, I know country is also crystal methamphetamine and Walmarts, poorly-funded public education and suburban sprawl, 4-lane highways that lead to the mall, struggling farms and unemployment.
People with money have stolen the word country, packaged it up and sold it to people like me, another person with money, who wants to look at pretty pictures. I also want to believe that somewhere life still exists untouched from the damaging effects of globalism, capitalism, and environmental degradation.
But on this second day of our trip, facing the realities of these mountains and talking with the people who live here, I realize the effects of such evils are impossible to escape.
Anyway, what is country living?
1 comment:
Hi Tallu,
I moved to rural WV when I was 8 yrs old and stayed until I was 30. I have visited often and was back there for a year recently (Sept 04-Oct 05). And you are so right--"country" is not what the rest of the world thinks it is. But, too, not all country churches are like the one you described. There are still churches where people still wear their "Sunday best" and sing from a hymnal with live piano or organ music, where they still use the King James' Version Bible and occasionally talk about Hell and Damnation.
As for your description of "country," and how it's being marketed, understand that:
There are people who have antiques, but they are usually antiques that are practical and still being used. We don't "collect" them for display; we use them. There are still people who cook from scratch--usually with ingredients straight out of their garden. They still bury their money in glass jars in the back yard. They are fiercly proud. They are old and tired and the younger generations are turning from the old ways.
Food stamps and Wal-Mart are easier than growing a garden and learning how to cook. We and our ways have been forgotten way too long. We have learned to live like the rest of the world--the easy way. And when that fails us, we don't know how to fend for ourselves anymore. And our pride comes from having a t-shirt with a popular character on it, not from knowing how to sew and making something ourselves. Pride comes from having the latest CD or DVD (even it was bought from a vendor at a flea-market who taped it illegally) rather from having the ability to read, write, or make your own music. I don't know when this happened. Pride comes from having enough money to go to a fast-food restaurant for a sandwich with hard, white tomatoes and brown lettuce rather than from growing the biggest, reddest tomato in the county.
But I feel partly responsible for not learning from my parents and grandparents and not carrying on the traditions. I hope your team is visiting Appalachia to help them get that back and not to make them even more dependent on outsiders and their help.
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