Harry Caudill: Appalachian Environmentalist

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

But we don't do that anymore. Or, at least, we do very little of it. And when you're fortunate enough to find someone who can do it-who does do it-he's a very interesting personality and a subject of comment. What we have now is a fragmentary, dying manifestation of a much richer culture.

PLOWBOY: Do you think that this trend toward extinction of the old mountain way of life is irreversible?

CAUDILL: The old ways are almost gone now, but I think they'll be saved as great stories are saved in books and in museums and on records.

Take folk music again, if you will. There's very few people who can play and sing and dance the old songs and the old jigs that were commonplace parts.of living here in the mountains just a few decades ago just before the Second World War. The very fact that there are individuals trying to save that music now-on records, with tape recorders, by setting up classes for the young-is an indication of just how near extinction the old music is.

It was World War II, that great diverter of attention, that really did it. The old way of life was very much alive until the war which caused a great out-migration from these hills. People moved away to the high-paying jobs in the big cities. And then radio-and, later, television-became commonplace here in the mountains and the families who were left shifted their attention from the old music to bluegrass and all the things that came after.

PLOWBOY: And how do you feel as you watch the old way of life die?

CAUDILL: I find it very sad that a folk culture as old, as rich, as varied, and-I think-as strong as the Appalachian folk culture is in the process of dying out.

But we must remember that we have a common language here in the United States and we have a road system that goes from one edge of the continent to the other, and we have television and radio that are ubiquitous, omnipresent and we're becoming a homogenized people.

In 20 or 30 years Americans will be the same, I suppose, everywhere. And who knows? We may be the most bland people in the world because of it. All will be talking alike and doing their desperate best to look alike.

PLOWBOY: Is that a good direction for us to take?

CAUDILL: Well I've always urged people to retain their individuality, and that's a very unpopular course to follow right now. The most unpopular man in the country is the individualist, because he's universally distrusted by the great rank and file of the people. Again, I think, that reflects the changing times and mores.

For example: Mountaineers and Kentuckians-in fact, people all over the country-used to elect very colorful people to public office. Men got elected on color. In my boyhood, for instance, the U.S. Senate contained many people who were there because they had strong, exceptional, unusual personalities. There was Glenn Taylor of Idaho "Happy" Chandler of Kentucky "Pass The Biscuits, Pappy" O'Daniel from Texas.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print