The Hillbilly Highway: Home of the Meek.

When I read Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance, I felt a growing sense of anger with the turning of each page. By the time I finished the book, I was disgusted. Yet, because of rave reviews from the New York Times and the Washington Post. Appalachia was described to the world by someone who had never lived there, portraying themselves as an insider who was real enough to expose all the flaws of the folks living here. The anger I felt reading that book, which would serve better as kindling than reading material, was equally matched by the joy I felt traveling home this weekend on US Route 22, the Hillbilly Highway. As I flew through southern Ohio toward my native central Pennsylvania, I felt rejuvenation much like I imagine one feels when one visits Mecca or Notre Dame. As I passed through each town, I was inflicted with a crescendo of Appalachian joy. On Route 22, I can turn my radio down to 0 and still hear bluegrass through the pines.

This morning, I had a rendevous with my uncle, my dad, and my uncle's friend Jim on a mountaintop golf course. As the crew approached the clubhouse, we were a sight to see. My uncle donned a T-shirt without the "T", and Jim rocked a Dr. Pepper T-Shirt (T included). My dad and I wore polo shirts, with basketball shorts which means we met at least 25% of the dress code as a group. The first thing my dad did when he saw his brother was to tell him how great his medical marijuana card is, which spun into a debate over whether marijuana has a shelf life. After a debate that would rival that of the Roman Senate, we proceeded to the first hole. I hadn't seen my uncle since my grandmother's funeral, which I had to drive him to because the Pennsylvania State Police revoked his license. Why was it revoked? When his trailer burned down the month prior, his homegrown marijuana was in "plain view" of the officers called there to help him with an emergency. I was excited to see my uncle, he's a very interesting character. To my knowledge, he has a 9th-grade education, he has never worked for someone, he has never been married, and he very well may be the freest man in the United States.

My uncle the sovereign may not have worked for anyone else, but that doesn't mean he hasn't worked. My uncle is an entrepreneur, he chops firewood for sale, sells it from his house, and calls it a day. He said with respect to the State Police, "They don't bother me much anymore, they know I've been the local firewood guy for a long time." Not only is my uncle an entrepreneur, he's also got diversified streams of income. He spends a considerable amount of time every week sneaking onto the region's most elite golf courses, in search of bounties of white gold to sell in buckets back to the "bigwigs" as he says. He has expansion on his mind as well, he told me, "Yep, once Zach gets in them political conferences I'll have all sorts of bigwigs to sell buckets to". My uncle takes great pride in his work, he told me a number of times that he works for everything he gets, insisting he doesn't take handouts. He is a man who at any time you may find hiding from golf course staff, dragging a sled up or down a mountain he believes should be called "Womer Mountain", or in some far-off municipality haggling over the price of miscellaneous goods. On the golf course, he doesn't get any less novel. He exclusively uses wooden golf clubs. He reminded me of this every time my "fancy" driver sent my ball into the woods. Many times on the course I would be waiting in anticipation of his shot so I could take my whack, and I would see him trouncing through the woods looking for golf balls. I began to realize that he was almost certainly trying to pay for our current round with these excursions. He's working even when he's not working.

This causes me to return to Hillbilly Elegy in which J.D. Vance describes us Appalachians as incredibly lazy, helpless people who are "losers". This is an aspersion that could only be proclaimed from the Mount of bullshit on which J.D. Vance has built his reputation. J.D. Vance's description of my uncle would likely describe him as a hopeless redneck who has no idea how to help himself. A description that pulls its conclusion from the assumption that we all must aspire to material wealth. This obviously ignores that many folks in Appalachia could give a shit about ascending the ranks of an economic system that has proven it favors the ruthless. The truth about Appalachians is that we are collectively Meek. Meekness is not a negative attribute, it only becomes consequentially negative once folks from the flatlands seek to exploit it. Biblically, meekness is defined as one who is, mild of temper; not easily provoked or irritated; patient under injuries. This is the observable condition of Appalachia. We are defined not by laziness, nor learned helplessness as J.D. Vance says. We are defined as a people who are willing to work our asses off, only to receive the bare minimum. This is evidenced by the history of the coal miner. Men (including my forefathers), who lived in company homes, in company towns, getting paid in company script. Men, who were prevented from unionizing by the threat of death. This historical reality in Appalachia resulted in money being funneled out of our hills to everyone but us. And we accepted it, for a long time, and as coal dries up, we are now being asked to pull up our bootstraps by venture capitalists like J.D. Vance. As if, the hundreds of thousands of us living in this region had never considered the idea of working harder. As if, as a collective people we just decided to be poor. This is only an idea that can be held by someone who has no empathy.

As someone who was lucky enough to travel down Route 22 and receive a free education worth nearly $300,000, I easily could have fallen into Vance's spell. I could have easily looked back at my kin and said that the reason I succeeded was that I am such a great person which J.D. Vance has chosen to say about himself. But I know that's not true. The only reason I am where I am is that I was gifted with enough talent to achieve things even my affluent peers can not. I didn't earn it, I was given it. Whether you believe that is due to the grace of god or the doing of the universe, it wasn't due to me choosing to be better than my kin. Hell, if hard work was the sole reason for someone's material success, coal miners would be the richest men in the world. Appalachia's condition is far more complicated than the erroneous pontifications of one fraud.

The proliferation of the idea that Appalachians are responsible for our current condition has been allowed to sit in the American consciousness for too long. That is why I will be writing a book this summer entitled, "Blue Dogs, Black Coal, and White Pills". I believe this region has been kicked around, misled, and abused for long enough without one of our own rectifying it. So that is exactly what I am setting out to do. Rather than resting on uninformed, prejudicial narratives from an outsider, this book will use data, and authentic vignettes to accurately portray the region.