“OK, but that's no big deal in Virginia or West Virginia, or really anywhere in the Appalachians. Coal is available – it is mined here for the rest of the country, so of course people are still burning coal here. The thing about bigotry is that you miss the real people and their real lives … no, listen, I was raised by people who were bigots and I'm recovering myself, so, I know how this works. You're a city-fied bigot, and your kind of bigotry is as bad and dangerous as any other kind of bigotry, except you want to move here, and you're going to find out it is bad and dangerous for you more than anyone else.”
“Why do we have so many messed-up relatives, though?” eight-year-old Edwina Ludlow said to her ten-year-old cousin and new adopted sister Glendella as they listened to Capt. R.E. Ludlow talk another relative down from doing something rash.
“I think everyone does,” Glendella said, “because we are all related to Adam and Eve and like I heard Mrs. Stepforth two doors down saying, they fumbled the bag for all of us.”
“Yeah, but, why do we have so many that are outta control?” Edwina said. “I mean, I definitely break bad but I have good reasons – I'm never coming at anyone about them heating their house when it's cold!”
“I really don't understand why anybody would think calling anybody a poor ignorant coal-burner is even a good insult,” Glendella said. “I mean, if you are going to be a bigot and risk your life, at least be high effort!”
“Yeah, because folks like me are everywhere, and ain't no telling!” Edwina said.
“Wait a minute … that's what Upgrade Papa is telling our cousin now!” Glendella said.
“Listen, cousin, I'm going to need you to keep your butt in Manhattan, because if you get down to Lofton County and start this stuff, I can't protect you, and I know that because one of my grandmothers was an Appalachian. Let me just tell you about my family, relative to that. You like to play with the girls and I've heard you sometimes take what you want. My grandmother used to put together hunting parties with her women friends for men like you.
"All of us boys had to watch this being organized if it happened while we were visiting, and she sat my brother Henry and I down when we were knee-high to a grasshopper and explained that there were certain things we were not to do to girls and women, and that since we were her grandsons, she would come for us in her lifetime, and if she were gone on home to the Lord, there would be others. Some of those others are still out here, cousin. You're not ready!”
“I'm one of those others!” Edwina said.
“Then there are the men – what you need to do real quick is look up the Southern Snatcher who terrorized poor, remote communities in the Carolinas but then came to Virginia and disappeared in 1987. He got put off the mountain by my cousin who was 13 at the time and acclaimed as a man after he rescued his fellow child – that cousin went on to be a colonel, and I'm still trying to work out whether my unit kills in combat equal his hand-to-hand combat stats beginning at age 13.” You're not ready!
“And then my grandmother has a great-great-granddaughter who saw some adult try to hit a child in front of her, picked up a baseball bat, and chased that adult clear out of the neighborhood – this was weeks ago, not decades ago! These are all people I know personally!”
Glendella started at Edwina.
“You are one of the others!” Glendella said.
“I told you – we don't play about ours!” Edwina said.
“So, stay in Manhattan – it's safer for you there, because if you come down here with that attitude, all you need to do is call somebody's grandparent an ignorant coal-burner, mess around with somebody's daughter, granddaughter, or niece, or say something snippy to the wrong child. The local vultures here do not need you supplementing their diet like that. All the cases I described to you are community defense cases, but we have some crazy relatives too – yeah, the ones I described are not the crazy ones. You're not ready.”
“OK, now that's a whole 'nother level,” Glendella said.
“Look, me being who I am, I don't think I even want to know the crazy ones,” Edwina said. “He better stay in New York! I've been to New York – it's cold there, and it's loud, but it is way safer than coming down here acting a fool!”
“Are the buildings really as big and tall as they look on TV?” Glendella said.
“Bigger!” Edwina said. “We got photos and stuff – wanna see?”
“Yeah!” Glendella said, and off they went back into the joys of childhood.
Sending you some Ecency curation votes!