"The cadence of name and county"

I think it was Chris Offutt who once included a list of all the small towns and outliers in his county as a tribute to a history still standing – postal districts which were once boomtowns, because people did not have the mobility to travel to the county seat to work and shop. The very composure of the land here maintains this arrangement, which makes ideas like the new consolidated high school in Whitesburg complicated. For what it's worth – and I'm sure it's worht plenty to morning bus drivers – mountains require patience and care and time when driving across them.

Offut, a native of Rowan County, rattled off a cadence of place names I could recognize, having grown up in Montgomery County, where my father was transferred to work for the State Department in 1977. US 60 winds through the county in curves and dips, around tobacco storage, trailers, new subdivisions, the entire two blocks of downtown Mount Sterling and past the bank robbed by the Confederacy in the Civil War. Howards Mill, Judy, Jeffersonville, Camargo, Sharpsburg, Salt Lick, Farmers, Owingsville, Hope, Science Hill, Bethel, Hilltop, Ewing (these are my mother's people; called Willow's Corners a century and a half or so ago and irrevocably changed by TB scourges), Sugar Grove, Carlisle. The stories would take days to tell, but ho would tell them, with me taking mere minutes to drive through these towns?

—Kayla Rae

The tipple there at the old portal 31 mine has been very important to me for some time. I first became familiar with it nearly ten years ago. The whole complex there at portal 31. It’s a rare instance that while the company left, the jobs left, the money left, the structures are still kept. I've seen my share of abandoned tipples, and for the hundreds I've seen there are thousands more. But Lynch is a special situation. Here, grass is cut around it, the land is maintained. For all intents and purposes it remains a monument to that which was here and what brought the elusive and terrifying it here. — Erik

The old company diner near portal 31

While the social science aspect of the Appalachian Studies program at UK no doubt offers vital information about the region, if one were to take only these classes that would, no doubt, have a very bleak outlook on Appalachia. It is classes like yours that allow students to realize that Appalachia is not simply an area of the country to be pitited; it is a vital region with a cultural heritage that is anything but quaint. The art of the region stands as a testimony to Appalachia's beauty and to the strength and resiliency of the Appalachian people themselves ... I think the end of Appalachia's environmental and cultural destruction will come when we cease to see Appalalachia as a charity case, as an area to be pitied and ridiculed. When we come to see Appalachia as an area worth protecting because of its cultural heritage and natural beauty, and when Appalachians come to see themselves as a peoplw tih a proud history and vibrant artistic heritage ...

I bet that if I closed my eyes, I could still tell you when we were driving by a river. My head rests against the half-open window; the moist air dances on my face and carries with it the cool, fertile, lively spirit of some body of Eastern Kentucky water. I catch a glimpse of the stream; half secluded in the shadows, half illuminated by the last rays of the setting sun. We are cruising over the narrow Perry County roads and it is almost dark. I glance down at the map that is spread across my lap. I seems to have been swallowed up by the severe topography. “There was a railroad, and it as also near the river.” The air near the river is cool and invigorating even on a stagnant 90 degree summer day in Kentucky.

—Katie

Kayla Rae, Katie, and Barbara peer into the aquaculture tanks at Benham

While taking in the sights of former mine portals 30 & 31, we had the opportunity to visit an attempt at aquaculture. Located amidst the dilapidated buildings of the former mining central is the beginning of an enterprise sponsored by Kentucky State and run by local “entrepeneurs.” For the past five or so years a select group of men have been trying to establish a trout farm in Lynch. This seemed extremely odd and out-of-place to me when I was first told of its existence. Nothing in the town of Lynch seems to be thriving, at least in the area we visited. After the mines closed, most of the buildings once used by the companies and the workers had been left empty, with the exception of the houses. In fact, the building which holds the trout farm itself appears to be deserted at first glance. I would never have guessed that this barren locale would hold what might prove to be a key element to the future economy of the small town. However, once the situation was better explained, it was clear that this was a perfect location for the endeavor; the former mining repair shop held everything necessary for a trout farm: a large open building for the fish tanks and a water supply. The water pouring out of the abandoned mines is ideal for the purpose as it is over 99% pure, requiring no filtration. The trout farm will hopefully provide a great opportunity for the local men who are currently involved... Through a bit of creative thinking, these men have established a source of income suitable to their environment to replace the lack of funding from the defunct mining industry...

—Jillian

The Mouldering Vine Hail! Ye singing sons of sorrow, learn from me your certain doom; learn from me your fate tomorrow, dead perhaps laid in your tomb. See all nature fading, dying! Silent all things seem to pine; life from vegetation flying, brings to mind the mouldering vine. See in yonder forest standing lofty cedars, how they nod! Scenes of nature how surprising read in nature nature's God. Whilst the annual frosts are cropping, leaves and tendrils from the trees, so our friends are early drooping, we are like to one of these. Hollow winds about me roaring noisy waters round me rise; whilst I sit my fate deploring, tears fast streaming from my eyes. What to me is Autumn's treasure since I know no earthly joy, long I've lost all youthful pleasure, time must youth and health destroy.

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