{"id":2062,"date":"2012-12-30T20:16:55","date_gmt":"2012-12-31T02:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/roadturn.com\/?p=2062"},"modified":"2016-09-07T15:59:42","modified_gmt":"2016-09-07T15:59:42","slug":"notes-from-appalachia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/roadturn.com\/notes-from-appalachia\/","title":{"rendered":"Notes From Appalachia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">BORN IN THESE HILLS<br \/>\ntaken away\u00a0when I was three.<br \/>\nSon of a coal miner who took<br \/>\nmy mother, my brother, and me.<br \/>\nDrove west to the ocean, Pacific.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">The kids there called me &#8220;hillbilly&#8221; and &#8220;hick.&#8221;<br \/>\nSaid I talked funny. Punched me, kicked me,<br \/>\ngenerally tried their best to make sure<br \/>\nI knew I didn\u2019t belong there.<br \/>\nAnd I did not.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Eventually, though,<br \/>\nI learned to speak like them,<br \/>\ndress like them, act as if I was not<br \/>\nfrom Kentucky, my daddy<br \/>\nwas not Appalachian, that<br \/>\nthese mountains had no part of me.<br \/>\nMy only recourse was<br \/>\nafter the pledge of allegiance\u2026<br \/>\nI never sang the \u201cOregon\u201d song.<br \/>\nI sang, &#8220;Kentucky.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">But, my father, he wouldn\u2019t change.<br \/>\nHe was proud of his heritage.<br \/>\nHe played banjo; he played mandolin;<br \/>\nhe went fishing, a lot.<br \/>\nGrew the best garden in the county,<br \/>\nate soup beans and cornbread.<br \/>\nHe did not give a hang for their Yankee ways.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">I hated him. I hated my father.<br \/>\nuntil I returned to these hills.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">Now I see them,<br \/>\nI see him,<br \/>\nin me.<\/p>\n<address>(Poem by Don Sturgill, copyright 1983, Kentucky | photo\u00a0By Jan van der Crabben (Photographer) (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons)<\/address>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BORN IN THESE HILLS taken away\u00a0when I was three. Son of a coal miner who took my mother, my brother, and me. Drove west to the ocean, Pacific. The kids there called me &#8220;hillbilly&#8221; and &#8220;hick.&#8221; Said I talked funny. Punched me, kicked me, generally tried their best to make sure I knew I didn\u2019t [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[413],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/roadturn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/roadturn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/roadturn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roadturn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roadturn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2062"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/roadturn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2643,"href":"https:\/\/roadturn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2062\/revisions\/2643"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/roadturn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roadturn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/roadturn.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}