From Coal Country

Over the last two days I definitively entered the big hills. Instead of the rollers of MO, IL and Western KY, whose amplitude rarely exceeded 100ft, these hills climb and descend 500-1000ft. And they're as steep as anything I've ascended on this trip yet. Yesterday I even began to read a very real rhythm into my riding. Went something like this: climb in my lowest gear at 5mph for 20min, stop and eat a snack near some big machinery parked at the top of the hill, descend at breakneck speed in 3min, roll through the holler and past the 5-6 houses planted there, swerve out of the way of a few dogs, wave at a toothless gentleman, begin climbing again. I repeated this 6 or 7 times.

I stayed last night in Hindman, KY (HIEND-man). I rolled into town a little after 4pm and began my usual search for a place to pitch my tent. I didn't see any churches as I pulled into town, so I stopped in at the local gas station and asked to borrow the yellow pages. She said she didn't carry those. I asked for a phone book, she handed me one. The listing of churches stretched on for several pages; it included all the churches in the whole county. Almost everyone here, it seems, goes to church, and I guess that most churches have an attendance under 20 people. I gave up trying to figure out if such-and-such church was in Hindman, or Emmalena, or Darfork, or Bulan, or Garner, or Mallie, or Rowdy, or Dice, or Dwarf, and I gave her back the yellow pages and asked if there were any churches in town. She told me she reckoned so. She pointed the way through downtown and told me I'd run across a couple. I biked that way, and stopped in at a big catholic-looking edifice. I peeped inside and heard the clinking of billiard balls in the basement. I walked into the frigid air conditioning and moved downstairs where I saw a big fellow with a huge head of hair playing a solitary game of pool. His hair was continuous from the crown of his head to the tip of his chin, long and shaggy. One might even think "hippie" at first glance, something certainly shocking for Eastern KY. I greeted him. He introduced himself as Seth. We talked a little while, and he invited me to stay in the church building. (It was actually an old Methodist building converted to a Baptist youth center.) In fact, he explained, he'd been sleeping there in the basement for the last week. He did that sometimes. He wasn't going to be there tonight, though, he said, because his mom was picking him up to take him back home. "Help yourself to whatever's in the fridge," he said. He had a gentle way of suggesting things that made it seem perfectly natural to bed down in the basement and help myself to whatever was in the fridge.

I took off to look for some groceries for dinner. Found a fruit and vegetable stand and went a little crazy. Picked up two sweet potatoes, two tomatoes, two peaches, three peppers, an onion, two squash, one zuchini. I don't know what I was thinking. Real whole plants are gold when you're mostly eating cheap processed foods, which I am.

I got back to the church and instead of cooking immediately, Seth and I sat down and began to talk literature. And I began to ask myself where did this very literate, very sensitive Kentuckian come from? I guess that was the wrong question really. The better question would have been where did I ever get the idea that Kentuckians are just hillbillies, and that hillbillies don't care about fine things? I sat there and put glue on the soles of my shoes and taped them up to repair some serious heel separation, and talked with Seth about the novel he's currently writing, which to me sounds like an incredibly subtle portrait of a Kentucky coal miner and his family falling into depression and corruption. We talked about poets we like and why. We got really animated about novelists, him about Cormac McCarthy and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, me about Melville and Dostoevsky. We talked about Kierkegaard and his impact on our faiths. He told me about a failed attempt not too long ago of walking across the United States. I enjoyed his company immensely.

Later, they had a Bible study in the room above while I chopped and cooked my quarts of vegetables. I ate them all, with a very little help from Seth, and even ate two chilidogs which I scrapped together from their fridge.

After their church service that night, two others came down to say hello and to invite me out for ice cream, a married couple, Cory and Jessica, and a bright-faced baby on Jessica's hip. They drove me to DQ where several others, including Seth, were sitting already eating various treats. Cory and Jessica are a young couple, 30 yrs old. They already have 4 children, the oldest 3 of which were at home with Grandma, or someone else responsible. Even though they're from this area of KY, they explained to me that they are really gypsies. They've lived all across the country in their few years together, from North Carolina to San Diego. Jessica had a concerned, motherly way of paying attention to my interests and needs, like so many of the women I know married to my good friends. She asked me lots of questions about myself and my trip thusfar. She whispered to me several times later that night that they could take me back to the church whenever I was ready, just let them know when. Cory had an easy and smart sense of humor, making fun of Seth and his passion for Kierkegaard in such a way that you weren't quite certain he wasn't actually making fun of himself. He talked about his own travels and his experience of fatherhood (he singlehandedly midwifed for his wife's 4th child, the bright-faced one on her hip) with self-effacing good-humor. And there was another fellow there on the other side of the table eating his ice cream and telling funny stories about his year living in Poland.

Kentucky? Kentucky of the rottweillers and surreptitious marijuana farmers and the no trespassing signs and the blank stares, where are you? I'm finding Kentucky looks different the closer I get up to its breathing, laughing face.

Tonight I'll be staying in Elkhorn City, on the KY side of the state line. Then I'll bike into VA, my last state of all, on Tuesday. Mom is planning to meet me that evening and take me out for dinner. Not too long after that I'll be pulling into Staunton, VA, sleeping in my childhood bed for a few days, then heading off with 3 good friends into the Shenandoah National Park, to ride north along the Skyline Drive. And then on to the coast.