Supposedly, it all started with an apple. In the beginning was the garden, the serpent, the woman—and “those fair apples,” as Milton writes in Paradise Lost. That was the beginning, or perhaps the beginning of the end.
Every time I moved felt like facing my entire life all over again.
However, maybe because of the cantankerous aging process or a rekindled love for the region’s history, I often find myself staring at these sites now, wondering what once was and one day could be.
On this day in end-times 1999, Jimmy Carter, the former president of the United States, that sweetheart, was on a flight I was working. It was a shuttle flight, D.C. to New York, maybe. No First Class, no fuss.
The concept and meaning of risk changed as we aged. As kids, the risk of our fathers losing their factory jobs never occurred to us. The notion that anything as large and permanent as the factories would disappear seemed ludicrous.
Today’s generation of Appalachian writers has been able to find outlets for an array of work that delves deep into the complexities and nuances of a geographic region larger than many nations in both area and population.
Few exhibitions would be more appropriate for me to walk past on my way to work than the Demarest Metals, a reminder that Belt Magazine is grounded in the history – and the future – of this region, that labor deserves to be honored, that there are complicated, beautiful, and essential stories being written about and by people in areas too often passed over.
Now there's an ubiquitous phrase on the Plains: we excel at "putting down roots"...Growing up in Kansas there is quite the opposite idea. Less so roots and more so treacherous vines.
Thompson captured photos of the place — the hills of WVA folding into each other like origami, holding mist and dew in the hollows. And he staged new photos which conjure these working men, bearing up under hours of physical labor, covered in white dust, looking otherworldly but also fully human and integral to the achievement.
John was unbelievable with a trash bag. He threw the lighter ones from his hip, like an uppercut. The heavier bags were more like a hammer throw. You could tell he was accustomed to using, and needing to use, all the muscle he had left.
Centralia became an attraction for both horror movie fans and ordinary people fascinated by the story.
May Day isn’t just an estimably American holiday, it’s a particularly Rust Belt holiday, forged in the cauldron of Chicago’s streets and factories, born from the experience of workers in the mills and plants of Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland.