Hard Living Isn’t Romantic

“Local supply chain” in Appalachia during the Depression meant you might be marrying your cousin, pulled your well water 40 feet from where you shit, and made your skirt from a flour sack. 

“Local supply” meant no books, no movies, no big ideas — just well-circulated ignorance and prejudice. 

My father was the son of the town drunk in the poorest town in Eastern Kentucky. It wasn’t romantic; it was hammered by fear and alcohol, cold and heat, bugs and hunger. It was hard living and it didn’t make you better.