What follows is an essay I wrote this morning. No, 9 to 5 isn't strictly an informative look at Appalachia. But we love it here, and it's our region and community, we do what we want.

These Mountains Raised Others

If you're like me, you're probably feeling some type of way this morning about the passing of country legend Dolly Parton. You might have different reasons for feeling how you do from me, but my message remains the same. The spirit of Dolly Parton is not gone from this earth. There are more out there. And we're not going to stop helping just because one of us is no more. Dolly Parton grew up poor in the Smokey Mountains of Appalachia, like a multitude of Appalachians both before her and since her. Her childhood experiences drove her to work harder than anyone to make sure she was never poor again. Once she had enough to protect her from poverty, she started to look around.

This is probably the part of the story that the most people know about Dolly Parton. She was the rich country singer who put her money towards investing in people. I always saw though something a little different. I saw the Appalachian archetype of the fun gay aunt given the tools to be what she was always meant to be. I never met Dolly Parton personally, but I must have met her in SWVA, WNC, ETN, and EKY at least a thousand times in spirit.

The same mountains that raised Dolly Parton raised others. They look different, they talk different, they have different talents and skills, but every one of them is the embodiment of what people loved most about Dolly Parton. In these mountains, if you want to survive, you have know how and when to help others. You have to recognize when it's time for comedy and when it's time to tell someone to fuck off. Most importantly, if you want your survival to last more than two to three seasons or years, you have to practice radical acceptance.

Dolly Parton is not a unique character to these mountains in terms of what she saw and what she chose to do about it. She is only unique in that her recording talents gave her access to material capital that most of the fun gay aunts of our region can never dream of. Outside of these mountains stereotypes about us abound. We're dumb. We're violent. We're petty. Within these mountains though we've found that the best way to survive is not through stepping on everyone else while you climb your way out, but instead to uplift all those around you.

Appalachia is not poor because of her people. Appalachia is poor because of the people outside of her who rob us blind. Plenty of us are sad today, and will be sad for a good long while about the passing of Dolly Parton, but it's not because something has left the earth entirely, it is because we have to confront what it feels like to lose a fun gay aunt. The pain I feel is not just for Dolly but for the realization of what it will feel like when the fun gay aunt local to me is no longer with us.

The tears I cry are also in part because I know deep in my heart, no one is coming. No one has ever helped Appalachia as much as Appalachians like Dolly have. Even with all the help we've been able to give ourselves, it has not been enough. The mountains that raised Dolly Parton raised me, too. I see the poverty she saw. I grew up in it, felt it personally, just like her. I never was as low growing up as she was, nor will I ever rise as high in life. Just like her, my spirit drives me to act because these mountains and these people cannot carry on like this forever. As long as the mountains stand, there will be more Dolly Partons to come.

Which brings me to the ultimate point of all this. Since European feet first stepped foot on the dark loam of the valleys, the red clay of the mountains, and the karst stones of the ridges there has been a war against this land. For 400 million years these mountains flattened slowly under the weathering processes of glaciation, rain, and wind. Today they flatten quickly under the processes of economic exploitation and disregard for the mountains and the people. These mountains raise defiant, strong-willed, beautiful people. As long as these mountains stand, this will continue to be so. That these mountains might not stand for much longer is simply unacceptable.

Every industrial exploitative process that occurs against them without their consent must come to a stop, just as it must everywhere the people on earth suffer. In all of the places that anthracite coal and uranium (the two most valuable minerals mined here) is naturally formed, the people suffer. In all of the places where liquid natural gas pipelines cut, the people suffer. Well just because the most visible of us is no longer on this earth does not mean her spirit left us, too. We will fight in these mountains for these mountains. We have fought you for 400 years. We will fight you for eternity. The battle will not end until the mountains are the freeest place on earth there's ever been, and that cannot be as long as a single person down off them breathes enslaved breath.

The mountains will be free. The valleys will be free. The rivers will be free. The plains will be free. The waters will be free. Or so help me Dolly, I'll kick your goddamn shin.