Appalachian Man interview-James

all right james yeah sir james where'd you grow up where are you from originally uh charleston west virginia which is where you're still living today yeah yes sir you grew up right here on this in this holler yeah i was born here and tell me about your childhood you had your mom and dad growing up as a kid well when i was growing up i didn't have no dad and my mother had to keep us i had one but he never would do anything for us and we didn't have nothing uh we'd have the toothache and our face to swell up like that and usually when there's a little snow on we had to suffer all through that and uh so we had a hard time your family was poor yeah that's poor and the only thing we had to eat for breakfast would be sugar and biscuits made with soda and it would stick to the roof of your mouth you guys grew your own food yeah i grow my own food how far did you go in school uh probably the fourth grade or so after that you started working i worked yes what kind of what kind of jobs have you had i carried stone for stone masons i carried cinder blocks i mixed the mortar pushed concrete the wheelbarrow one for the head the thingy the hose you put it in with and uh worked for the state for a dollar an hour you never uh mine never did coal mining no coal mine was more a little further south my dad was a gold miner her dad was a coal miner yeah and he was in world war one i got him buried with her how old are you now huh how old are you uh 79 79 born june 15 1942. did you do any military time no never did and uh how many kids have you had six six kids and you and your wife raised them my wife raised them and i raised them and uh every one of them is dead but one is that right well drugs drugs yep oh wow yeah this region has been hit hard by drugs right yeah it's changed a lot since you were young but why do you think that is why do you think appalachia has just been taken over by drug addiction uh well i've never took a drug in my life but everybody thought like i did there wouldn't be no sales for them i don't understand what's on their mind yeah i've interviewed a lot of people from this area and it seems to me like there's nothing going on everyone gets bored and they just look for something to i stay bored too but i don't get on drugs good fight good fight i'm sorry about your kids i don't know what kind of i don't know what kind of hole that drugs has got on them but they run around their legs swelled up this big around with abscesses on them and still looking for for for a fix and i told them i'd go to the hospital with them stay with them all night all day and do everything i could to get them off of it they wouldn't listen to me and your wife the mother the mother of your children is yeah she's a good woman she stuck right with us fed us she was a good manager and we never went hungry i mean when i was working and i think if you got a kid or a son or something or a baby or something i think you ought to keep it that's my motive and did you ever consider leaving this area no i mean it just seems like poverty is is rampant here every everyone is poorer than the next yeah yeah but i i'm struck by how nobody wants to leave yeah no nobody wants to leave why do you think that is it's certainly a beautiful area well it's kind of funny because i've had two or three friends of mine that's old and was dying it seemed like they always they lived here years ago and they'd come up and talk to me and i said well i haven't seen you for 20 years he said yeah i said i come up here to see you wasn't two or three days so he's dead i think everybody wants to come back to where they was born before they die if they can what was the best time of your life uh when i was young and didn't have no pain now i suffer every day what kind of pain you have i've got rheumatoid arthritis i've got the my back don't have no tissues between the bones uh my knees are shot i'm just the pain all over but do you have any regrets so do you have any regrets in your life yeah what's your biggest regret well i'm kind of afraid to say but the way the society not everybody there's a lot of fine people but the state and the stuff treated me treated me i'm sorry they mistreated they mistreated me the state has and stuff in terms of what like like uh my son was died in prison and he uh was on the fourth stage of cancer lung cancer they let him boyfriend die they wouldn't take him to the doctor and end up present up at mount olive and they brought him down to charleston memorial hospital and that lady was feeding him ice cream she told me i got there 15 minutes before he i mean after after he died i said i looked around to give him another spoon ice cream and he was dead and they'd keep a hound in me for these taxes that i don't that i don't know what do you what do you attribute the fact that so many of your children became addicts too what do you think was the the cause of that the headache well i mean what your children got into drugs what do you think i don't know what caused it but the people the young people they fooled around with was on drugs i think that's uh something's got to do with it i've always taught my kids to respect the other people not throw with drugs because if you do it'll ruin your life and you can't even buy a loaf of bread i know people like that now yeah and this region seems to be so it's drugs are so out of control yeah they're completely out of control yeah what do you think the future is of this part of the country try to get them people off of drugs when a person's on drugs he don't think that nothing for about nobody but the drug what's the most important lesson you've learned in your life uh be good to everybody watch what you're what's what you're doing and be good be a good person and respect everybody are you religious um i'm religious yes very religious but i don't bother because you see that wind blowing out there that tree and leaves are moving the winds are doing that and they can turn the car over can it but can you see it that's a miracle within itself ain't it something can turn the car when you can't see it your family has owned a lot of the property up and down this this hauler right 50 years you've let some other people come and live here yeah with me my wife has fit everybody kids other people's kids all of our life they come in there and go but sometimes if it caused too much trouble we'd have to tell them to go so you your your you and your wife would take care of the other we took care of every kid and we ever was you can ask anybody around here and they'll tell you the same thing i'm telling you we fed them we never turned a man away or a woman or a kid hungry never and if i didn't have the food in here i'd go out there and pick up paper and crawl to help them that's what i believe in yeah i mean the kindness that you give that you show others i think probably comes back to you in one way or another doesn't it yeah that's what i think a lot of people don't understand if you'd come here if you're hungry and you're a good person i'll help you and i'll feed you but there's one thing that i won't support and i won't help as a drug addict i mean i might help him go to the doctor or something but that's it yeah the drugs changes a person's behavior drastically doesn't did you feel helpless with your kids did you feel helpless watching your kids and their drug their drug addictions did you feel did you feel helpless trying to trying to help your kids completely help us they wouldn't listen to you they'd be so sick of walking around with abscesses on them that big and their legs swelled up like that and still looking for a dope and they went to the hospital because it went to their heart and the doctor told him i said he said we're going to operate on you this time they said if you go back on dope that's it and they went back on dope and they killed them all after losing so much of your family you still keep a positive attitude every time never done it i think ever i cry your wife there's the kids the pain kicks in you can't kill it it's going to be hard for you to outlive everyone else in your family i wish i wish it would have been me it went to her you have grandkids sir do you have grandkids yeah anyone will help me do nothing i have to do everything by myself they're right do you think these younger generations are different than than your generation lots of different you know what do you see as being different well back in the old times you got in the garden and you worked or you wouldn't eat through the winter and if you had if you thought you was going to starve you'd go to work the garden yeah i mean appalachia is a very real struggle to survive especially for your when you the way you grew up yeah and it's almost like that struggle makes you it puts your head and heart in the right place it puts your heart yeah you're right and life has become so easy for so many people that they take it for granted and they drift off they've got it too easy yeah people with people eat too much they got it too good the difference between your generation and the younger generation is so distinct especially here even when i eat my breakfast i go out and try to work and pay for it and you're remarkably healthy for your age i saw you on the pogo stick up in the street just a little while ago and you just keep it i keep it telling i said i ain't dead yet but you move around like you're 25 years old what do you uh what would you attribute that to why do you think you're so healthy mentally and physically well here's what i think you take a person that they say i'm retired and i don't think i think i on account of that i hadn't aged any and it's what i think well you think you're young yeah i think i'm young yeah so if you think you're young you you're gonna do and you're gonna act and behave as if you're young i think everything closed down but i'm getting there but it's taking us time all right james well thank you so much for sharing your story you're welcome i wish you the best of luck i hope you live a nice long life thank you very much thank you very much and i love y'all i love you too you're amazing you

Channel: Soft White Underbelly

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Length: 13min 11sec (791 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 09 2021