Anyone watch Frontline tonight?

David Sutherland wrote, directed and produced a 6 hour piece for Frontline, called Country Boys, part 1 of which premiered tonight.

It takes place in Floyd and Pike Counties in Kentucky and follows the story of two boys in high school making the transistion to becoming an adult. Its a case study in a lot of ways of persistent rural poverty in America, specifically, Appalachia. It was really well done, no narration except for the boys themselves. It's not preachy, or in any way analytical. It's quite a moving story, just these two kids coming of age, trying to find some hope in a land thats seen more than its fair share of hopelessness.

I thought maybe Sodah who I think lived in Eastern KY and there's a couple of Western KY ladies here, and some over the river in WV, might be interested. Part two is on tomorrow night, and you can watch the entire 2 hrs I think of part one on http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/countryboys/view/

Good stuff. Thumbs up so far.

Yip, yip! I watched it and I thought it was done exceptionally well. I actually live only an hour away from Pike County now in southwestern Virginia where I was raised. LOL, the parking lot at Wal-Mart where they sat and ate....I've been there numerous times and actually just went over there last week with my children to a giant pizza/slash entertainment center. :p

Pike County is actually an excellent study as it has some incredibly rich people as well as the incredibly poor. There are many middle class families, but sometimes the stark difference between the two classes is amazing.

I liked it because it was done tastefully and respectfully. I'm looking forward to the next installment.

~Shan

Thanks very much for bringing that to my attention. As a Kentuckian who also went to college in eastern Ky., and became startling aware of those contrasts while I was in nursing school, I am also very interested in watching this.

Yeah Sodah you are totally right...done very respectfully! That's probably why I thought it was so good.

Ok, four hours into this thing...I have one question, I can't quite find an answer to. Its the same question I had driving through Pike and Floyd counties...

Why don't you just leave? Two hundred bucks and a train ticket...but just....go. Somewhere, anywhere....

Not meant to be an accusitory or patronizing question...just a question.

yeah, i asked myself the same question when the ethiopians were starving to death due to drought. "just leave" i thought. i don't know why people don't leave; for a myriad of reasons i guess.

glad to know about this. my ym is from ky and will be here tomorrow night. i bet he'll be interested in this. and god i love donald sutherland's voice. sorry there's no narration!

Well I guess its harder to leave your country, esp. getting citizenship anywhere else. But if you are in America, you can go anywhere else in America....where there is good work, where there are better colleges with good financial aid.

Is it parents? Is it friends? I remember talking to this girl in Matewan, WV in a diner when I was down there. She had never been anywhere, and had nothing to do after high school but work at the diner. I asked her if she was happy, and she said, that she's always dreamed of going to the city, and doing something else with her life, but she couldn't. I asked her why she couldn't and she said because her family was here. I left my address in the city, and was like, if you ever find yourself at the port authority bus terminal in Times Square and you're not sure where to go, call a cab and give the guy this address. So far, she hasn't looked me up.

Well I guess its harder to leave your country, esp. getting citizenship anywhere else. But if you are in America, you can go anywhere else in America....where there is good work, where there are better colleges with good financial aid.


That's a good point, Otto... and it's always easy to judge others when you are not walking in their shoes, as so many people tend to do.

Well I guess its harder to leave your country, esp. getting citizenship anywhere else. But if you are in America, you can go anywhere else in America....where there is good work, where there are better colleges with good financial aid.

Is it parents? Is it friends? ....

Otto,

Six simple words come to mind: Home is where the heart is. ;)

Folks who are emotionally/psychologically dependent on a community of loved ones or lifelong friends aren't prone to just pick up and move.

Making new friends and finding work in a brand-new environment can be very taxing emotionally speaking. Typically the lower your educational level and IQ, the tougher it will be.

Harrison:
Point taken...100%. Makes sense. I know a lot of people that never leave home, all the way from Staten Island to rural, poor, upstate New York.

Ok, four hours into this thing...I have one question, I can't quite find an answer to. Its the same question I had driving through Pike and Floyd counties...

Why don't you just leave? Two hundred bucks and a train ticket...but just....go. Somewhere, anywhere....

Not meant to be an accusitory or patronizing question...just a question.

Well, as a gal from north central Ky., but who went to college in eastern Ky., and lived for 3 years in that culture, my assumption would be that it's because of their really strong family ties in that area. Family roots are very important there. Of course, I lived in that part of the state nearly 30 years ago, but I truly don't think it's changed much since then.

For example, at the hospital where I studied nursing, sometimes patients from a couple of counties away were admitted there. The entire family would literally camp out in the waiting room for days while waiting for their loved ones to be discharged.

At that time, I observed that sons usually worked at the same places where their fathers worked, which is where their father's worked, and so on. It seemed to me that many of them simply did that because it was "the thing to do". It was just the culture. Living and growing up in the hollers where your family had always lived and worked was just the way it was.

I remember when I went through my home health rotation, going to a house to treat an elderly woman. There was no driveway leading to the house. In fact, we had to park our car on the main highway that went near her home, cross a fence, and walk across a field, to get to her house. She had probably lived in that little house since she was born.

I'll tell you something else interesting about the culture I experienced there. Most of my patients were either admitted for heart attacks or gunshot wounds. And a fair amount of them were unable to read or write. In all my years of nursing practice after that in the Louisville metropolitan area, I never saw 1/10 as many gunshot wound victims as I cared for during my time in nursing school in eastern Ky.

.... And a fair amount of them were unable to read or write. In all my years of nursing practice after that in the Louisville metropolitan area, I never saw 1/10 as many gunshot wound victims as I cared for during my time in nursing school in eastern Ky.

:eek: Awful! :eek:

Whiterose,

Did you get the feeling that folks thought this was pretty normal (gun violence and illiteracy) or was there a lot of community outrage?

Not having lived in that part of the state since 1979, I can't say how things are now, but at that time, it was accepted as the "norm". Everyone had guns in their homes. These weren't gunshots due to robberies or drive-bys, etc. They were gunshots inflicted during fighting. And if I recall correctly, quite a few of my patients were shot by family members with whom they were fighting.

And, about not being able to read/write, while it wasn't necessarily the norm, there were sure a whole lot of them who couldn't read/write. In fact, I remember that when I moved back to Louisville, it seemed strange to me that I no longer had patients who were unable to read/write, I was that accustomed to it.

People reading this truly won't believe this is true, but I kid you not. This was what my nursing school experience was like.

I'll tell you one more example of what life was like in Appalachia in the 70's. I had a teacher once who taught english in Pike Co. Apparently, a parent didn't like something she told the students one day in class. And while she sat on her front porch one evening, a car drove by and someone fired shotgun blasts out the window at her while yelling obscenities about what she had said in class. True story. She didn't stay in Pike Co. for long. :)

*Harrison shakes head in disbelief*

Man!! :eek:

So many things to address. First, people choose to stay in these areas because of family. That is the number one reason and I don't think its because of lack of education or low IQ in the least. I have a reasonably high IQ and my education is beyond a BS....not a master's yet. :p As much as I've roamed, I've always come back home. Like Whiterose said, family to us in the Appalachians is of the utmost importance.

I lived in Pike County in 1996. Illiteracy is not as abundant as it once was and while there I managed a large garden center so I worked with the public a lot. People in Pike County have an incredible amount of common sense and I never once ran into anyone illiterate in my time there, not saying it doesn't still exist, but I doubt it is as rampant as it once was.

As far as the meaness......oh heck yeah, they are still a mean bunch of folks over there. *shudders* I've been cursed up one side and down the other, physically threatened when I wouldn't accept a return and I believed her! I left Pike County for numerous reasons, but one of them being that people were just not very nice in general. I had some great friends from there who are all incredible people, but the general consensus is they are some mean *** folks living in Eastern Kentucky.

You do realize that this is the county of Kentucky where the notorious feud, the Hatfields and the McCoys, took place, don't you?

....As far as the meaness......oh heck yeah, they are still a mean bunch of folks over there. *shudders* I've been cursed up one side and down the other, physically threatened when I wouldn't accept a return and I believed her! I left Pike County for numerous reasons, but one of them being that people were just not very nice in general. I had some great friends from there who are all incredible people, but the general consensus is they are some mean *** folks living in Eastern Kentucky.

You do realize that this is the county of Kentucky where the notorious feud, the Hatfields and the McCoys, took place, don't you?

:D Okay, now things start to make sense...

Whiterose was describing some pretty stereotypical stuff. All that was missing was the moonshine still... lol

Whiterose was describing some pretty stereotypical stuff. All that was missing was the moonshine still... lol

Well, actually, I did say that my experience living there was 30 years ago and that times may have changed. Sounds like Shannon is confirming that some things have changed and that of course is good.

Speaking of moonshine, the county I went to college in was dry at that time and the only way we could buy beer/liquor was to find the local bootlegger. Where I went to school, this involved driving several miles up the mountain and going deep into the woods where there was a large, sweaty man named "Sweets" operating a bootleg business from a plywood shack.

I've heard the county is now wet, so no more runs to the bootlegger. That's a good thing because it was a pretty dangerous thing for young college age girls to do. :D

Shannon: I hope that nothing I said in any way offended you. I only am giving my perception of my experience in one community in eastern Ky. I actually loved the place and would have settled down there. But, in 1979, the garbage men in town were earning more than the RNs were. And that's another true story.

Shannon: I hope that nothing I said in any way offended you. I only am giving my perception of my experience in one community in eastern Ky. I actually loved the place and would have settled down there. But, in 1979, the garbage men in town were earning more than the RNs were. And that's another true story.

Not in the least, hon. You lived there too and those folks are still pretty mean to this day. *nods* I'm certain in 1979 there was a tremendous amount of illiteracy and there was here in Southwest Virginia too.

Just finished watching the 6 hr movie tonight...and I gotta say, if this doesn't win the documentary Academy Award category, I'd be shocked. It was just an incredible story, incredibly well done.

I didn't spend as much time in Pike Co. as you two did, but I definetly picked up on the meanness there. I witnessed a family fued in a gas station, two cousins or brothers or something ran into eachother and I was really scared.

The young boy in the story, Chris, his father died, and his mother and grandmother went with his two siblings to Florida. He tried that for a while but came back to Floyd county. His best friend, had...um political connections, so he was taken care of even though he was totally illiterate.

So at least for that one boy, it wasn't family that kept him there. It was more like a comfort zone. I think its that comfort zone that makes generational poverty tick. There seems to be a fear of leaving it, a fear of feeling strange or foriegn. A fear of not being able to comprehend a new environment, after spending so much time and energy just trying to gain control in an environment that you were born into and have known all your life. Maybe that's why a lot of people stay. Hoplessness is a very hard thing for me to comprehend, because I think, while I've been through some real tough times, I never really felt hopeless.

Appalachia as far as white America is concerned, is probably worst case scenario. There are probably black counties in GA, MS, AL that are worse. Never been there so I can't say. I did however, get to go through the entire Navajo reservation, into the Apache res and part of the Ute res, and I belive the Navajo res in particular was worse. Even worse than that was the Lakota Souix res. That was just....whew...bad. I grew up in rural poor Maine, but driving into Pike Co. and touring back through the hollers on the West Virginia border out of Williamson, really knocked me on my butt. You'd talk to people that were so wonderful and kind, but really just had the life knocked out of them before they could live in because they were here...in a coal waystation, hours to Lexington, KY, hours to Charleston, WV.

Whew...generational poverty. Makes me feel thankful, that unbenowst to me how bad it really gets, I decided to set my roots in New York City (they all said it was the biggest and best) and go from there.

EDIT! By the way, Maine made the AP wire tonight...check this out. I'll have to tell you Pike Co. people stories from my time in Augusta. Augusta has two things, the state jobs, and a VA and large mental hospital. If you live in a Augusta, you work at one or the other. My idiot friend (also my bridesmaid) took some of my money and went to find us an apartment. Oh she did. Smack in the middle of a large halfway complex for the mental hospital. It took us a while to figure that part out though. Oh...the stories I have from the year plus I lived there. Stephen King be dammned.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060111/ap_on_he_me/brf_maine_drugs

...Appalachia as far as white America is concerned, is probably worst case scenario. There are probably black counties in GA, MS, AL that are worse. Never been there so I can't say. I did however, get to go through the entire Navajo reservation, into the Apache res and part of the Ute res, and I belive the Navajo res in particular was worse. Even worse than that was the Lakota Souix res. That was just....whew...bad. I grew up in rural poor Maine, but driving into Pike Co. and touring back through the hollers on the West Virginia border out of Williamson, really knocked me on my butt. You'd talk to people that were so wonderful and kind, but really just had the life knocked out of them before they could live in because they were here...in a coal waystation, hours to Lexington, KY, hours to Charleston, WV.

Whew...generational poverty. Makes me feel thankful, that unbenowst to me how bad it really gets, I decided to set my roots in New York City (they all said it was the biggest and best) and go from there.

I've gained enough personal exposure to poverty to where I don't need to look at it on TV. ;)

Well you can watch the whole documentary on the internet as well :)
Its not really all about poverty either. And its not TV! Its PBS...our awesome state run television station! I hear ya though, I don't know nothing about being rich, and I'm not going to turn on MTVs Laguna Beach to find out...

By the way, my friend who I had a beer with tonight kindly reminded me that the head of MSHA now is a Hatfield, and the surviving miner of the Sago disaster was a McCoy. I didn't pick up on that myself. There's a lot of Hatfield-McCoy fued historical sites there are out there. I myself, personally went for the Matewan coal war, but was pleased to learn the history of that fued.