Countdown to Qatar: Letting Go of Place

For 13 Years, I've Called the Central Appalachian Mountains my Home

These lush mountains provide a home and identity for proud, resourceful, self-reliant Appalachians who express a hospitality that combines both mountain and southern values.  They emphasize family ties, community, and church. 

They use power washers like no other population I've ever met, probably because mold and coal dust tends to coat walls, porches, and other outside structures in this wet climate.  And because, contrary to the stereotype, they are fastidious housekeepers and take great pride in their homes, yards, and gardens. 

These mountains 
shelter wildlife that includes black bears, panthers, coyotes, deer, timber rattlesnakes, migrating birds and butterflies, raptors, owls, mourning doves, ravens, groundhogs, spring peepers, cranes, and chipmunks.  I've also spotted blue-tailed lizards and voles in my own garden. My Facebook friends are familiar with my sightings.

Just about everyone has a dog.  Many folks have three, including me.  Never heard of Redbones until I got here.  And, Chihuahuas -- go figure -- are a popular breed amongst my neighbors.


Grundy itself is located on The Crooked Road, a tourist promotion tied to local bluegrass venues.  I've spent many summer hours enjoying music played by area artists at The Breaks Amphitheatre, The Carter Fold, Jonesborough's Music on the Square,  the Country Cabin, Ralph Stanley's Hills of Home festival, and other venues within a 2-hour radius.

I've hiked the Geologic Trail at The Breaks Interstate Park. That park is known as the Grand Canyon of the South and offers hiking, horseback riding, swimming, paddle boating, camping, and cabin lodging.  Throughout the summer, it hosts nature talks, a Civil War reenactment, a car show, a molasses cook off, and a crafts show. 

I've learned that the area is actually a river-cut plateau made of brown sandstone, coal, slate, and limestone -- the remnants of a great swamp, beach, and sea.  If you look again at the first photo in this posting, you will see that, in the distance, the tops of the mountains, despite all the deep hollers, are flat as pancakes.  That's ancient plateau.

I've stood under the tallest hemlock in the park -- a survivor of early loggers because of its inaccessible location.  It will die soon, with all its kin, because of an infestation of an invasive insect from Japan.

My house shows the hours I've spent in local antique shops, flea markets, and garden supply stores.

I've discovered that the most important gardening tool is a pickax because the ground is full of stones.

I've watched typically quiet Slate Creek swell with snow melt and spring rains and rush past my house at near flood stage.  I've seen it join the Levisa River as it flows northwest (!) to Pikesville, KY across the riverbed access point where Brenda and I collected hundreds of polished sandstones we used to build my garden walk.

I've logged many hours driving along the Appalachian Mountains on my way to historic Abingdon, VA, Johnson City, TN, Charlottesville, VA, or D.C.

I've eaten local strawberries sold by a very sweet, very talkative, 77-year old guy, who told me recently he had had a hard childhood.  Later in the season, he sets up his roadside stand to sell sweet corn, tomatoes -- and later still -- apples.  These seasonal purchases represent my modest effort to support local agriculture.

I've drunk bootleg moonshine delivered in a mason jar and tested by igniting a spoonful over a match flame to see if it burns blue -- a sign that it carries no harmful impurities. 

I've seen annual motorcycle rallies that included a blessing of the bikes, loud music, pork bar-b-que, and acknowledgment of the sacrifice of local veterans in foreign wars.  So many bikers have zipped past my front fence for so many years during the "poker rally" that the dogs long ago gave up barking at them.






I watched demolition crews take the face off a mountain to create a site for one of a few three-story WalMart located in the U.S.  The folks in Grundy, including myself, welcomed this retailer.  It saved us a 45-minute drive to Richlands or Pikeville to do shopping.

I've attended many funerals and watched my friend's loved ones buried in family cemeteries perched on mountain sides where the headstones are positioned so the rainwater pouring off the mountain won't topple them forward. 


I've learned that they still drape lace over the open casket, perhaps forgetting that in the past it was meant to keep flies off the dead.  I've learned that the closest relatives still keep an exhausting, but loving, overnight vigil with the deceased from the time he or she enters the casket to the time the body is laid to rest. I've heard mournful mountain hymns sung at these funerals by local preachers along with joyful ones expressing a deep belief in the safety and peace of Heaven.

I've watched July 4th, Homecoming, and Christmas parades that halted ALL traffic through town and featured fire trucks and ambulances blaring their sirens, home made floats with their riders throwing hard candy to kids along the route, marching Boy Scouts, flag toting veterans, and beauty queens spanning the age of newborns to college-age sweethearts.

I've seen the peril to an economy that is reliant on the extractive industries of timber and coal.

I've heard the whistle of the train, loaded with coke, leaving the belching fires of the Jewel Smokeless coke plant.  

I've seen kudzu cover entire trees, houses, and a backhoe. I've watched -- in the bed of a truck parked on the main route through town -- a sapling grow into a 20-foot tree.  I've seen a poison ivy vine dominate the wall of neighbor's shuttered house.



I've eaten at a local diner that features traditional foods designed to feed large families on very limited incomes. Those local delicacies include chicken & dumplings, beans and cornbread (also known as soup beans), and sauerkraut and wienies. 

I've spent happy times with students, staff, and faculty at the Appalachian School of Law. This mission-driven school gives first generation college grads the opportunity to get a professional degree and then return to their rural communities to provide access to justice, leadership, and community service.

Something Different

I moved here to experience something different from the agricultural plains of the Midwest, where I grew up. 






I moved from St. Louis to a town with 1,000 residents.  I moved from a diverse community -- measured by race, religion, and culture -- to a far more homogenous community, unless you count the confusing (to me) and numerous sects of Baptists -- Regular, Old Regular, Primitive, Evangelical, Southern, and Missionary. 

I moved from an overscheduled life to one centered on teaching, writing, students, friends, and hobbies.

And now, after this long respite, I am ready to try the big city again.  This time, Doha with nearly 800,000 people. No doubt, I'll adapt to that new place.  People will be there to help as people helped me here. 

More about those folks of this place in an upcoming posting.

Countdown to Qatar: What to Sell?

The House, for sure.




Over the last few posts, I've been discussing my transition to a new job in Qatar beginning on August 15 (yes, I've got a firm date now).   That transition has forced me to consider what to sell.  This past week, I boxed up most of the family heirlooms and other items for storage.  I've also packed about ten boxes of clothes and other items I plan to ship.

I also spent several hours on the Qatar Ikea website adding furniture, dinnerware, cutlery, lamps, and other items to my shopping cart to decorate my anticipated four-room apartment in The Pearl District of Doha.  The list includes all sleek, modern items in white, light beige, and black.  Here is my new bed.

So most of my "country cottage" furnishings that I enjoy here will not fit this new experience I'm creating. 

Final Close Out Sale!

So, time to sell everything that's left in the house? 

This week, I was confronted with that possibility.  A potential buyer offered on Thursday to buy the house with all the furnishings.  (Still waiting on a contract, but expect that to come some time next week from her or another interested buyer.)  Over the next 24 hours, I considered what I would and would not sell under those terms.  I wandered through each room assessing the furniture, original artwork, and accessories. 

Turns out, I can sell it all except for a metal sculpture my Mom loved that descended through the Drinkwater side of her family. 














I also want to give to my nephew a sewing box my Grandfather Paul Young created for his mother during the Great Depression.  He carved the word "MOTHER" on the top of the box.  Can you imagine someone doing something quite this sweet today?

On the bottom of it, consistent with his love for accounting, he identified how many pieces of wood he had used (1193), the number of nails (2384), and the number of hours it took to construct (95).  It also mention the use of 5 "belt's,"  but I have no idea what that means.  On the sides, he has featured a Christian cross, a lighthouse, and a sunburst. 

It also refers to the NRA (National Recovery Act) and provides the year of its passage (1933).

I also want to pass on to my nephew two handmade duck decoys that Paul Young carved.  They are the survivors of a great flock he had that, when not being used on a lake during duck hunting season, sat on a ledge in his basement in his house located in Virginia, Illinois.  I recall examining many of them as a child.  

In short, this week represented a major step in the process of letting go of the stuff I've accumulated.  In later posts, I'll talk about letting go of "place" and of the friends and colleagues I've grown to love.



Countdown to Qatar: Letting Go of ASL

So long ASL.  

It's Been Very Good 

to Know You!

Letting go of place also involves letting go of the law school I have called home for 13 years.













It involves letting go of my faculty colleagues at the Appalachian School of Law, many of whom are also in the midst of a transition to a new job and locale. 

It means letting go of students with whom I've built relationships.  It means saying good-bye to a certain type of teaching to a certain population of students -  mostly first generation college or grad school students from the central Appalachian region. 

















It involves giving up a large office I've loved on the "library side" of the award-winning building that houses the law school.

It means saying best wishes to staff members who have always been helpful, hopeful, effective, dedicated, and cheerful.

It means leaving a community where service was at the core of operations for many of us -- service to the school, the students, the profession, and the community.
















I joined the ASL faculty the summer after the shootings that left our acting Dean, Tony Sutin, a beloved professor Tom Blackwell, and a student, Angela Dales, dead from gunshot wounds.  The shooting also left three other students gravely injured.  I was prideful enough to think that my dispute resolution skills might offering some deeper healing to a community scarred by the tragedy.  Instead, I think I did help two of the victims -- just by being present when they needed me.

My many students have taught me how to teach.  Yes, I read just about everything published on the topic of active learning, but the once-semester evaluations always enlighten me.  I love my students and the successful professionals our alumni have become.  They created better lives for themselves and their families because they took advantage of the educational program we offered.

My faculty colleagues have worked overtime in so many ways these past three years to help ASL respond to the New Normal in legal education.  I appreciate their commitment to the mission of the school, but mostly I appreciate their concern and support for students.  They have acted with utmost care, concern, and ethical behavior.







I want to especially thank my Assistant, Sandy Baker, who is professional, timely, persistent, supportive, and smart.  She serves more faculty members than any one Assistant should and does it with patience and grace.
















I will be letting go of the 300 flower bulbs I planted on campus the same day I fractured my leg in three places.  Those daffodils and other early spring flowers always make me feel happy and connected to all the other gardeners who love the message they bring.

I will leave behind to my colleague, Professor Priscilla Harris, my office (if the new Dean permits) and many of the furnishings that made it a productive intellectual home for me.  She has been a constant companion for many years.  Funny, dedicated, wry, scary-smart, and caring.  A complex assortment of characteristics that have made knowing her a delight.

Her husband, Stewart, has also been a good friend, rarely missing an opportunity to give me a warm hug.

I will relinquish the handicap parking spot I used when I knew no one else would need it so another space would open up in the Reserve Parking near the main building. (P.S.  I'm selling my car: 2011 RAV 4 Ltd, 4WD, 48,000 miles, leather interior, JBL sound system.)






Hardest of all, I have decided to pitch the ADR materials I have collected for over decade that now fill 12 lateral file drawers.  That's been a tough decision to make, but letting go is never easy.

I am cherishing the last few weeks I have teaching an online course on Practice Before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.  I've got really terrific students in the course, and I am interacting with people -- invited experts --  who came into my life when I was a very young associate.  In so many ways, I am enjoying the "book-end" aspects of that course and its design.





I could say so much more, but won't.  As the firm day of my departure for Qatar approaches -  August 15 -- I have moments in which tears well in the corners of my eyes.  This place.  This path.  This learning.  These folks.