- [Mark] All right, Chris. - Yes. - [Mark] Chris, where'd you grow up? Where are you from originally? - I'm from here. - [Mark] Which is Leslie County. - Leslie County, yeah. Middle, this is called,
they call it Middle Fork. - [Mark] Tell me about your childhood. You had both your parents
when you were a kid? - Yeah, but they never was there for me. - [Mark] Where were they? - I kind of raised myself. - [Mark] What happened to mom and dad? - Uh, well, my mom was on drugs, and my dad, he was, chose a woman over me. - [Mark] So you ended up, who raised you? - Myself and my grandma. - [Mark] And how would you
describe your childhood? - It was okay. - [Mark] What was the roughest part of it? - Probably not having a dad. - [Mark] Yeah, that would do it. How far do you go in school? - I went all the way up to the 12th grade. - [Mark] Did you graduate high school? - No, I didn't graduate. I went, you know, half
the year in 12th grade. - [Mark] Oh, I see. So you almost made it. - Yeah. Almost. - [Mark] And then you went
on your own and did what? What kind of jobs have you had? - Well, I've been self employed. I do odd jobs, or I get out and dig roots, you know, pull bark. - [Mark] Yeah. - Or weed eat, just stuff like that. - [Mark] So, this is a
very poor part of Kentucky, which is a very poor part of the country. - Yes. - [Mark] What kind of money
do you make a year doing that? - Not much. Just barely enough to get by. - [Mark] But you live in a,
you have a trailer, or you...? - Nah, I live, I stay with my dad. We have a little, it's a
one room, two story house. - [Mark] Okay. And how old are you? - I'm 31. - [Mark] Thirty-one. Do you have a wife, or
kids, or anything like that? - Yeah. I have a five-year-old boy. - [Mark] And you're raising him? - No, I don't get to see him. - [Mark] You and his mother separated? - Yeah, me, his mom told me
he wasn't mine and stuff, and yeah, I just never have, you know, got to have anything to do with him. - [Mark] Right. When you were a young man did you have dreams of doing
something with your life? - Yeah. You know, I woulda liked to have
played professional sports or something like that. Baseball or basketball. - [Mark] Uh-huh. And
have you ever traveled? Have you ever been outside of Kentucky? - Yeah.
- [Mark] Where have you been? - Let's see, I've been to
Florida, Michigan, Ohio. Been to Virginia, North
Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana. I've never been past the Mississippi, or across the Mississippi. - [Mark] Yeah. You've been around. Have you ever considered leaving? - Yes. - [Mark] It seems like
there's very few opportunities for work here. - Yeah, there's not much around here. - [Mark] But what keeps
you from packing up and moving somewhere else? - This is home. - [Mark] Home is home. - Yeah. - [Mark] And do you have
friends and family here that you stay in contact with? - Yeah, my mom, she's from
Bledsoe in Harlan County, which isn't far from here. - [Mark] No, right down the street. - Yeah. Then, on my dad's side, I'm kin to almost everyone around here. - [Mark] Right. What's the best, what are
the best and worst things about living in Appalachia? - Uh, the worst, I don't, they're really not, none of them (indistinct)
things you could say is the best things about
living around here. (Chris chuckling) - [Mark] It's beautiful. - [Chris] I guess family would be it. - [Mark] Yeah. It's beautiful here. - [Chris] Yeah, it is beautiful. And you know, you can
get out and, you know, make money in the mountains. - [Mark] What are the,
what are the worst parts of living here? - [Chris] Everything's so
far away, everyone's poor. - [Mark] A lot of drugs here?
- [Chris] Yeah. - [Mark] Yeah. Are you
involved in that too? - [Chris] I used to be on
drugs, but I'm on Suboxone now. - [Mark] Oh, you are? Okay. Yeah, a lot of people use that to get off. But you're happy here? - [Chris] Sometimes. - [Mark] You're depressed sometimes too? - [Chris] Yeah. - [Mark] Yeah. What gets you down? Just, get lonely, or do you get...? - [Chris] Yeah. And, you know, and there not being anything to do. - [Mark] Right. Do you know
anything about your family? The generations that came before you? - [Chris] Yeah. On my dad's side, there,
my granny's brothers. were banker robbers
back in the 40s and 50s. - [Mark] Really? - Yeah. You know, they decided that, you know, or they might've even started
during the Great Depression. I'm not sure, but, you know, they decided that they
wanted to get away from here, you know. - [Mark] Where'd they go? - And robbing the banks, I
guess, is how they got by. - [Mark] And where'd they
move? Where'd they move? - Do what? - [Mark] Where did they move? - Where did they move? Well, they robbed banks from
here all the way to New York. And they got, you know, they got captured and got put in prison, and they escaped Federal Prison
in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania. And, you know, they went on a crime spree from there to New York. And they got gunned down by,
you know, New York City Police. It's on the internet. - [Mark] Really? - Yeah, it's called, Joseph and
Ballard Nolan was her names. - [Mark] And these were your? Your? - My great uncles. - [Mark] So, you know, living
in Appalachian, you know, it's a very, it's a very
tough life, very strong. You know, you have to
work hard to survive. - Yeah. - [Mark] But it makes,
it makes everyone here, everyone here seems very
honest, and very hardworking, and very willing to help their neighbor, and help people. - Yeah. They say your word's
all you got. You know? - [Mark] Yeah. And people here seem to have a lot of integrity. - Yeah. - [Mark] You don't see that everywhere you go in the country. You know, with all the
technological advances that are going on in the world, Appalachia seems to be
kind of left behind. - Yeah, we are. - [Mark] Do you feel like
this is a dying way of life? - Uh, no. - [Mark] You think this will continue? - Yeah. - [Mark] Yeah. You, I mean, like for your
son, you have a son, right? - Yeah. - [Mark] You see him
staying here like you did? - No, he lives out in the
western part of Kentucky, in Columbia. You know, and his mom, there, she got killed back a few years ago. But he stays with her
mom and she's a doctor, and you know, he don't have
to want for nothing. So. - [Mark] Yeah, so, he's taken care of? - Yeah. - [Mark] Is this a very simple life? - Yeah. - [Mark] Very, I mean,
what stresses do you have? What do you worry about, or what are you stressed out about? - Now it's how I'm gonna
get, make, you know, my next dollar. - [Mark] Yeah. It seems like a lot of the people here are involved in drugs. It seems like they get,
they get maybe bored. What do you think the causes of the addiction stories you see? - Mostly boredom. - [Mark] It just gets kind of, yeah. - You know, there's nothing
else to do around here, but get high. - [Mark] The painkillers were
really the beginning of it, right? - Yeah. You know, they was. Pain pills really aren't
a big thing anymore. - [Mark] So, crystal meth has taken over? - Yeah. Well, it's ice, it's
not really crystal meth. It's a lot weaker than crystal meth, but it is methamphetamine. - [Mark] Can you imagine what
your life would have been like if you had been born in a big
city like Chicago or Atlanta, something like that? - No, not really. No, you know, this is.... - Have you been to some
of the larger cities? - Yeah. I used to live in Richmond. - [Mark] Okay. How'd you like that? - I liked it. I was in high school
the winter I, you know, lived down there. I went to a model laboratory school, it's on the EKU Campus. It's a private school. - [Mark] Uh-huh. - I had a lot in, you know, or I could have probably went somewhere if I would have stayed at there. But.... - [Mark] You're still a young man. You still have many years ahead of you. You can do many different things. - Right.
- [Mark] Do you have any plans for anything you'd like to do? Or do you wanna just stay here
and dig up roots and ginseng? - Well, yeah, you know,
I'd like to get a job, you know, a steady paying job. But, you know, everything's so far away. - [Mark] What's the most important lesson you've learned in your life? - Probably always be honest. And, you know, karma
always comes back on you. Or, you reap what you
sow, as the Bible says. - [Mark] Are you religious? - Yeah, I believe in God. But I wouldn't say, you
know, I'm really religious. - [Mark] Religion seems to be
important to a lot of people in this region. - Yeah, it is. You know, they believe
women's gotta wear skirts, and long sleeves, and all that. And I don't, you know, I
don't believe that way. And some people handle snakes. - [Mark] Are you Pentecostal? - Nah, just I went to Church of God. No, I don't believe, you know, women should have to wear a
long sleeves and all that. That's Pentecostal. That's
the way they believe. - [Mark] That's part of the
Pentecostal Church, is it? - Yeah. I guess you would
just say I'm a Christian. - [Mark] All right, Chris. Well, thank you so much
for talking with me. - [Chris] All right, thank you. - [Mark] And good luck with
wherever your life goes from here. - [Chris] All right. - [Mark] Thank you, man. - [Chris] All right, thank you.
