Or so Jane Hicks’ home once seemed to be. The award-winning poet and quilter lives in Blountville, Tenn., from where she coined the term “cosmic possum.”
I grew up in extreme northeast Tennessee, up where folks think of Knoxville as middle Tennessee. I lived only a mile or so from Virginia. Some of my classmates’ backyards were on the state line, where we sometimes amused ourselves jumping from one state to another. Another friend lived at the gap where the road passed from Tennessee to Virginia. Daniel Boone passed through this same gap on his travels and blazing of the Wilderness Road.
Naming tells much about a place. In addition to reference of the Wilderness Road, we grew up with Warrior’s Path, The Great Stage Road, Old Stage Road and every imaginable gap – Bull’s Gap, Wadlow Gap, Blair’s Gap – the list goes on. I grew up on the road to anywhere else.
Our house stood at the end of the street, the last house in the suburbs of a small city. On one hand, we roamed the neighborhood; on the other, we roamed the ridges, woods, and the banks of the Holston River (at one time the gateway to the west). To call us town kids would have been a stretch. We spent as much time on our maternal grandparents’ farm as we did at home. I could tie a hand of tobacco as well as I played the trumpet in my high school band.
At my blue-collar high school, we were expected to follow our parents into the work force at one of three large plants in town where jobs were plentiful and secure. Teachers and counselors (a very new thing when I was in school) implicitly and, sometimes explicitly, steered academically promising students away from “here.”
I never understood this mindset until VISTA workers visited my school during the War on Poverty Days. It was then I found I was Appalachian. I had always thought of Appalachia in terms of heartrending magazine pictures and tragic stories on the nightly news. For the first time, I faced being stereotyped and was told that to be successful, I needed to leave the region.
After a brief and miserable stint living in the Midwest, I knew that I had to go home. Big skies and unending prairies left me feeling vulnerable and shaken. I made my way back to where the skies are small and the mountains stand guard.
I achieved my dream of being a teacher, so it was not necessary for me to go anywhere else to do the work I loved. My 30 teaching years passed quickly. During those years, plants closed and jobs were not as plentiful or secure. More and more of our brightest students followed the roads to anywhere else. Some willingly left the region. I sometimes get e-mails and notes from former students who would come home if the could find suitable work. I remember my days on the prairie and hope they find a way.
New trails now figure in our region. The Appalachian Trail, the Quilt Barn Trail and The Crooked Road lead people into the region. Visitors will find wonderful people and places of my home and all we have to offer. I hope new and responsible economic development allows our young people to stay and that our region becomes a destination, not the road to anywhere else.
