An Old King of Appalachia
Somewhere deep in the hollers of east Kentucky is a place that might not look like much, but will always feel like home.
In true Appalachian fashion, mornings were quiet. Heavy with a thick fog that wouldn’t break til almost noon. The sun would come out for a few before the afternoon storms rolled in, then it’d set again behind them hills what always felt like a lot earlier than it should.
The river moseyed past the cabin at a pace all its own, slow and steady, the way it has for hundred of years. It’s bottoms full of trout and banks carpeted in a mix of jewelweed and bright red cardinal flowers.
Every evening was a parade of diesel trucks heading home from another shift at the refinery. The dust clouds from the gravel road covered everything with a subtle sparkle til the rain washed it all off again.
The squirrels were so fat they sounded like coons runnin’ across the tin roofs on the old cabins as they scurried up into the giant sycamore trees and back again, but that’s exactly how Mr. Bill liked ‘em. Hell, he had two freezers full for stew up on that old barn porch.
Mr. Bill was a character and king of it all. An old game warden with a lifetime of stories about the changes time had on that place, he’d get a special kinda grin across his face when he realized you were mountain people too. He was one of 13 children raised on that land. A man that never knew he was “poor” until he left the holler and saw the world for the first time. His family raised just about everything they needed between their garden and livestock supplementing with the sheer bounty of the land. A living relic of a time when things moved with the rhythm of the seasons and the weather told them what to do and when to do it.
Every night he’d come ridin’ round on his buggy, with a shotgun and a jar of homemade shine at the ready, gettin’ onto the boys when they got a little too rowdy, yet eggin’ them on cause he liked a little bit of mischief all the same. Then he’d retreat back up to his rockin’ chair on the porch to keep watch, as the holler funneled voices up to his ears and he could listen to it all unfold.
Mr. Bill passed in his sleep on Halloween mornin’ last year, probably dreamin’ about chasin’ them squirrels he loved so much. A mountain soul and larger than life kind of man that’ll be missed by many. In the old Appalachian way, he’s buried up on the hill to the right, where the deer come out to graze every evening and he can continue watching over his little kingdom of a holler.
It was his home, but by sharing it with us he made it ours as well. None of us were from there, but everyone belonged there. He kept the mountain ways alive and by doing so made that holler a part of mine and many others stories for years to come. In that way his legacy will live on, as well as his love for those fat little squirrels and that little piece of mountain paradise.