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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview
K-0506, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern
Historical Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill”
At the time of the interview, Jerry Lee Plemmons, a lifetime Madison County resident, worked for the French Broad Electric Membership Corporation, consulting on energy conservation and working toward community development. In this interview, he reflects on the influence of development, particularly highway construction, on Marshall, NC, a town known as "a mile long, street wide, sky high, and Hell deep" (14). Plemmons sees roads as both constructive and destructive forces—they bring new money and new people to communities, but they also offer residents the chance to leave, invite environmental damage, and balloon property values, thus driving out longtime residents. Rural North Carolinians, then, must work not only to protect their economic and environmental stability, but also the stability of their community values.
Jerry Lee Plemmons, a lifetime Madison County resident and energy conservation consultant, discusses the influence of development, particularly highway construction, on Marshall, NC.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
Friday, November 10, the year 2000. It's approximately 2:00, a little bit after, and I'm in the office at French Broad Electric Membership Corporation (EMC) in Marshall. I'm with Jerry Plemmons. Jerry, could you say something just to make sure we're picking you up?
Sure, Rob. I'm Jerry Plemmons, same date, same time, same place with Rob. We're still wondering who's going to be the President.
Jerry, let's start with just a couple basics. Could you tell me your age, first of all?
Sure, I'm sixty-two.
Where were you born and raised? Where do you live now?
I was born here in Madison County. Have lived basically all my life in Madison County. I currently live four miles west of Hot Springs, very near the Tennessee state line on highway 25-70.
I mentioned that we are in the office of French Broad EMC, where you work. Could you tell me first of all, how long have you worked for EMC? What is your role here?
I've been here about nineteen years. Came to work here in '81, if memory
serves me correctly. I basically wear two hats. Primarily doing energy
conservation work. That entails doing a lot of high bill complaints,
working with members of the co- op who want assistance in conserving
energy. That's a part of my work, and that takes up probably fifty
percent of my time on a year round basis. The other half of my time is
Where exactly in the county were you born and did you spend your childhood?
I was born in the Brush Creek area, just above where the Madison Middle School is now located on the Red Hill Road. I moved with my parents when I was about five years old to Marshall, just on the mountaintop above Marshall, so to speak. I lived there until I was about eight or nine years old, then we moved out to Walnut Creek, which is just downstream from the public health department.
What did your parents do? What did your father do for a living?
My dad worked most of his adult life at Coal, Feed and Lumber Company (CF&L)—hardware—in downtown Marshall. He delivered products. I remember for many years, Coal, Feed sold a lot of Coal, which was pretty prominent. [Background voice]. Dad drove a truck delivering coal, and I can remember him coming home in the fall and winter after having spent all day in the basement loading coal, taking it out and unloading it. They didn't have dump trucks or any kind of equipment to load that coal other than shovels. So, he shoveled a lot of coal.
I shop with some regularity at CF&L, and you don't see any coal there anymore. That's interesting for me to find out in terms of just the name of that business, that that did play a pretty active role.
At that time there were several independent coal haulers in this county. A lot of fellows had trucks that they drove to Kentucky and Virginia, and brought coal to this county that they delivered to homeowners. Coal was a pretty predominant heating fuel for a great number of years.
Was he delivering to outlying areas, or primarily in town?
Oh yes. Outlying areas.
My assumption would be that they would burn wood.
No. There was some wood burned, but the transition was not from wood to oil, it was from wood to coal to oil.
Well, that's quite interesting. So you were saying that you remember as a child your dad getting home from work and being covered with coal.
Absolutely covered. Looking more like a coal miner than a delivery person for hardware.
Did he ever haul independently for himself?
No, no.
And your mom, then, was a homemaker?
A homemaker primarily. She worked for a short period of time at a store in Marshall. At a variety store—the National Five and Ten. When we lived above Marshall she did domestic work for some of the store owners that lived not far away. She would go in and do housecleaning and things of that nature for them.
So this is a blue-collar family, pretty much. Working class family in the community. Did you all ever farm?
We farmed a bit. We never had much of a farming operation. When we lived above Marshall, my dad and my dad's brother and their father had a farm operation that included—in addition to tobacco—corn and some wheat and oats, and things of that nature. One of my fondest memories is of a huge meal prepared by the ladies in the community for the men working the thrashing machine in the fall. The thrashing machine would come around and thrash the wheat and oats, and the fellows in the community shared work and helped each other with that thrashing. And all the women got together and fixed the meal for the day. It was a feast.
Did you have chores around the farm as a boy? When these people would show up with the thrashers, would there be a role that you would play in that?
Really didn't have one. I was too young at that time to have a role of
any magnitude. I remember it was my responsibility to get the cow in in
the evening for milking. I'd have to go out and make sure I could find
the cow and get the cow back in. I was pretty shrewd. I made it a point
to never learn to milk or ( ). At least to camouflage the fact that I
knew how to milk. When we moved out on Walnut Creek we had a little more
direct hand in the farm operation, in that we did raise about three
tenths of an acre of tobacco. Of course, by that time I had to hoe the
tobacco, pick up leaves and help with the handing of tobacco in the
fall. It's kind of ironic now. You look at the way tobacco is raised and
processed, and it's so much less labor intensive. One of the most
amazing things to me, I guess, of all the changes that have taken place
in this area during my lifetime, is that the folk who raise tobacco now
use migrant labor. Very little
When I moved here in '73 it was unthought of. For at least another ten years we have a very strong memory of going over the ( ) to photograph some Latin migrant farm workers who were working some tobacco over there, and driving up into this holler and getting out of my car. They had a tape deck playing Mariachi music. There was this very dark Indian woman from Mexico who was cooking tortillas over an open fire, and I said, "Man, this is really pretty amazing." A real cultural change. So you were born in '38?
Right.
Do you remember a time when you were growing up—did you have electricity in your house while you were growing up?
We did not have electricity until I was about eight or nine years old. That was when we moved to Walnut Creek. That was basically [just] the lights. A little later on we were able to buy a refrigerator, and that was a marvelous thing to come into the house.
I'd like to touch on more than one or two of those as we talk. But I would think that must have been a really significant thing, not just for your family, but for the whole county. That must have just been a really amazing change.
Well, I can remember after the Second World War seeing the contract
crews in the county building the lines out into the rural communities.
There was electricity in and around Marshall prior to the war, but out
in the outlying areas there was little or no electricity. I say little
or no—CP&L had lined Hot Springs, where they served
the resort
So when did the Membership Corporation come in?
I think the Membership Corporation actually began about '42. A part of that was the purchase of some existing northwest utility operations here in Marshall and in Burnsville. That was the beginning point, so to speak.
When you were out on Walnut Creek and maybe didn't have electricity, what did getting electricity on an immediate basis mean for you and your family?
To be honest with you, Rob, it wasn't that significant of an event in that it was so gradual. The first thing we got rid of were the oil lamps; that was an event and a nice step up, but it wasn't like we had televisions and all the conveniences that we have now. The next thing, as I said earlier, was getting that refrigerator and having a place to keep the milk cold other than the spring house. Other things just kind of came on gradually as we could afford them.
I think it's interesting that you now work for EMC, but yet can remember a time when EMC wasn't here. We'll probably do a lot of jumping around in this, because that's basically the way my mind seems to work.
And you know me well enough to know that's the way I operate, too.
That's why I'm sure this is going to be a great interview. [Laughter]
It's interesting, Rob. I certainly recognized that my dad worked very hard— had a very taxing job, and a lot was expected out of him. He went to work before seven o'clock every morning and got home after six in the evening. Worked five and a half days—at least—a week, and that included all day on Saturdays. He was off half a day on Wednesday. I knew I didn't want that kind of job or life, but I really didn't have a vision of what I wanted to do. I just wasn't motivated, to be honest with you. I guess I was more inclined to let things happen and kind of go along and see what happened next. Did okay in school—I guess I was at the top five or six in high school in my class.
And this would have been at Walnut?
No, it was in Marshall. I spent twelve years on ( ) Island. But, my
success in school was because of my mother's encouragement. When I was a
senior, I guess, I got a part-time job at a grocery store in Marshall.
Even when I was very close to graduating from high school, didn't have
any idea what I was going to do. I knew my parents could not afford to
send me to college, and I didn't know that there were ways that I could
go without money. So, I pretty much ruled out going to college. Got a
letter from a radio broadcasting school—one of those
mass-mailings that went out to all seniors. Had not really thought about
working in radio at all, but sent the card back not knowing what to
expect or what information I would get. It was pretty timely in that
there was a radio station opening here in Marshall in the next few
months. So, one
So you did that here in Marshall?
I did that in Marshall.
And what was the station?
At that time it was WMMH. I worked there for a number of years doing everything that you do at a radio station—announcing, writing copy, doing news work. Everything.
When you got over to Nashville—and I'm sure that was probably a pretty major event in your life—when you got there, did you ever have the sense that, "I want to stay here."
None whatsoever. I can honestly say that I never remembered one time that I thought, "I want to live here or someplace similar to here." It never entered my mind. Maybe it should have!
Well, I don't know. I'm not so sure. Why is that? What is it that has held you here in this particular place?
Well, I guess we go back to that lack of motivation that I had in high
school! [Laughter]
One of the things that comes to mind when I think of you is your ability— it's more than an ability; it's kind of an innate part of who you are. You really are able to find common ground with a really wide, diverse group of people. I have this sense that you know everybody in the county and get along with them all.
I beg to differ with you on that point.
I'm sure that's a stretch of the imagination, but I think as a general kind of statement that's probably pretty accurate. And yet, you were formed right here in this very small insular kind of place.
I appreciate those comments. I'd like to think that's who I am, and if I am it's because of a number of things. It's because of the nurturing and encouragement of my family, to begin with. I love people, and I love the diversity of people. I am not offended by people who disagree with me or hold different opinions and beliefs. That's what makes us who we are, and God knows I'd hate to think that everybody believed exactly as I did. It'd be a boring world. But I enjoy the differences in people, and I just think it's fascinating to meet and get to know people of different backgrounds, different upbringings, different life experiences. Everybody has interesting stories. I love those stories.
When you were young—or now—did you have a sense that, "Gosh, I wish there were more going on around here, or I wish there were more opportunities for work." Did you have a sense of that from your dad, maybe? It seems to me—although I know Marshall was a more thriving place back in the '40s and '50s. It's turning around now, slowly but surely.
Interesting story about that. When I was growing up, prior to the construction of the Marshall bypass—it was opened in 1960, I believe, and that was four years prior to the opening of Interstate 40, down Pigeon River. Prior to '60, when the bypass was built, all the traffic from the midwest was coming south. A lot of the traffic came 25-70, which meant they came right through downtown Marshall. Keep in mind that in the '50s in particular people in the outlying communities were just beginning to get cars and trucks, and things of that nature. It was not at all uncommon for people to work five hard full days, and a half a day on Saturday, and then load up the family and the neighbors and whoever they could find that wanted to come to Marshall, and come to Marshall. And with all the through traffic that was coming through Marshall and all the local traffic that was coming into Marshall, Marshall on a Saturday afternoon was like most malls at Christmas. The streets were packed, and this was in the summer or in the fall—anytime during the year. I have even been told, though I have not seen it, that there was a Ripley's Believe it or Not section item that said Marshall had more business for its size than any town in the country. From that perspective, we saw lots of activity.
I would think that you had a sense that, "I can do most
whatever I want and stay right here." So when did all that
start to change? When did Marshall begin to
I think it started with the traffic moving to the bypass, and then the traffic moving to 25-70. The other thing that made the significant difference was, as people left the farm and began working in Asheville and Buncombe County they began shopping in Asheville and Buncombe County. Now, sixty percent of the retail sales from this county is in Asheville and Buncombe County, and that's what's really taken the business out of Marshall. As you well know, good roads take people both ways. They bring them into the community, but they also take them out of the community. With good roads and better vehicles it got very easy to get into Asheville. Obviously the variety of products— the selections that were available in Asheville would obviously be better than in a small town. And just the excitement of getting to go shopping in a big shopping area pulls a lot of people out. That's what I think really took the business away from Marshall and made it much more difficult for folks to operate general kinds of businesses.
We alluded to the fact that Marshall seems to be making some changes, and certainly Hot Springs is. I'm curious as to what you think about that. Do you feel like that is something that's going to continue to progress in a positive way?
Oh, I think it definitely will. When you look up and down the street in Marshall, there's a number of businesses that certainly would not be profitable if someone bought that business and tried to operate it as it is being operated today. The businesses that are there are businesses that have been there for twenty and thirty and forty and fifty years. They build up stock, they own the building; they don't have those kinds of costs associated with operating that business, so they can stay in business.
Businesses like Coal, Feed, and Lumber?
Like CF&L, like ( ) and Sons. Like Home Electric. When those places go out of business, my guess is that they will not be replaced by the same kind of business. Nobody will buy that business to operate as a going business.
What do you see happening, then, in downtown?
I think there will be an opportunity, and I think at some time there will be someone buy a building or two in Marshall and do something different. It may be putting in some unique restaurants. Hot Springs would be an example of that happening, with the Bridge Street Café—they draw folk from a wide area to Hot Springs for dining. Someone could buy a building in Marshall and create a unique dining experience. I've often wondered if you could get a large enough space down there and get an outlet for some major name outdoor outfit—like a ( ), or Lands' End or L.L. Bean—that would draw folk from a wide area because of its name and its uniqueness. I think for the town to survive it's got to be unique enough to bring people from outside the area. I know at this time of no way to create a business climate in Marshall that would serve the limited surrounding area.
I agree with that. I don't see that happening. It's interesting that a lot of the people who live out here—when I think about them and what they do for a living, it's very similar to what you just described as possible business ideas in Marshall. People out here like myself have found little niches doing something that's serving a particular clientele. People are willing to come out. They're willing to deal with me because of what I do and the uniqueness of what I do. What I'm hearing you say is basically, if the town had that same kind of attitude, that that's how it would make it.
An incubator for craftsmen or artists, I think, would be a nice addition to the town of Marshall. Those kind of things could encourage the establishment of restaurants and delis and things of that nature.
Actually, that's beginning to happen in Marshall, too.
To some degree. There's been a building block recently. I don't know much about the owners for the Roberts Pharmacy building, but I understand that that may be the start of what we're talking about.
Well, Bob ( ) down at the lower end with his welding shop and blacksmith operation. Louise ( ) is at Joe Ede's place.
I did not know that.
Yeah, that's been a while now. She's the one that's been stripping and gutting that place, and basically it's down to ( ) now. I think she's going to be able to leave one or two walls intact, but she has cleaned out the whole inside of that place. This is a woman who was a fashion designer in New Orleans for years. She's got some really big time plans for what she wants to do sometime down the road.
Well, hey! Right on, on that one.
I think it's exciting, too. I guess Doug McKenzie, too. Building his ( ).
You know what they say about Marshall? That it's a mile long, street wide, sky high, and Hell deep.
[Laughs]
There's that huge rock above town that has a big chain around it. Supposedly that chain is holding that rock—boulder, whatever—up on the mountain to keep it from falling on the town. I think that's more for show than for protection.
That sounds like a good "Ripley's Believe It or Not" story. Although, in spending time with Delly and her adopted son, Junior—Junior used to always tell me about his father. When he was living with his parents and his father was still alive, they had a place over on Shelton Laurel. He was right on the creek, and he used to chain the cabin to a rock to keep it in place during high creek times. That always sounded totally unbelievable to me, but maybe it's not.
Another "Ripley's Believe It or Not" that involved
Marshall was that because of the nature of the curves from Marshall to
Hot Springs, it was three tenths of a mile or a half mile farther from
Hot Springs to Marshall than it was from Marshall to Hot Springs. [Laughter] [Laughter]
In talking about the county and about you being here your entire life, what is your notion of place? How does place play a role in your life? And how does, then, this particular community reflect your thoughts about what place means to you?
I think to me, place is where you feel comfortable and you feel
comfortable with people. If the people are a part of the place, it makes
the place bigger than it may really be. I think it's as much
"are you comfortable with the people," at least in my
case. I'm more comfortable with the people, and identify as being more
comfortable with the people, than the place. Except to say that I do
very much appreciate the fact that there's so much diversity here and so
much opportunity to lose yourself in the environment. To
At the same time, I think, the people around here are definitely of this place. It's been one of the things that's certainly kept me here, is the uniqueness of the population. Certainly, in terms of the population, the diversity has really only come in the past twenty years, I guess.
Twenty to thirty. Yeah, that's been a big change. Going back to the people, I think a lot of what kept me here was the culture of the people. By that I mean the closeness of the people. I can remember time when the community rallied. There might be people that didn't necessarily like various people in the community, but if something happened they were always there to pitch in with the rest of the community to take care of things for the folks who needed help. That support system was so strong in these mountains. The way the folk in the mountains survived was sharing work, taking care of each other when someone got sick.
And your family played a role in those kinds of things all the time, too. Do you see that as being different now?
Oh yeah. I'm not so sure that it's different because of the influx of people from the outside as it is the fact that the times have changed so much and gotten so much faster in our pace of living. We've become too dependent on the processed foods.
And good roads that take us both in and out of the county.
Exactly. It's interesting sitting here looking at this painting that
Polly Gott did of the farm on Shelton Laurel. I see those cattle and a
lot of space, and I think back to the fact that when I was growing up,
everybody—every family—had a garden. Every
People like Peter and Polly, for example, who really wanted to adopt ( ). Malcolm and Vicky Owen for example, really wanted to adopt a lot of those mores and cultural values that were still here at those times. In the mid '60s, early '70s.
One of the most interesting things, Rob, obviously was the influx of
people moving into the county. There was some concern about insider and
outsider issues, and what I saw in many cases was elderly people who's
own children had moved away from the area adopting these young folk that
had moved into the farm or the house next door. They became their
surrogate children, so to speak. I know I've heard more than one
conversation where an elderly local person said something to the effect
of, "Well, you know, I used to feel like I was so dumb. I
didn't have much education, didn't go to school. And then these people
moved in here. They had all this big education, gone to school for years
and years and years, and they didn't know the first thing about raising
a garden. They'd always come at me with questions about the signs and
when to plant and how to do things. You know, they aren't nearly as
smart as I thought they was!" So, I
Yeah, their knowledge of place is what that was. Paul ( ) always talks about the fact that when he first moved up here the masses just being absolutely astounded. Just not being able to comprehend why someone with even a year or two of college would even dream of moving to a place like this. He was up on Doe Branch or something like that. Why would you choose to do that? We're talking about this idea of change and what brings it on. I think it's easy to be simplistic and say something like I- 26 is going to bring this enormous change to the county. Obviously, I think it is going to bring a lot of change, but at the same time change has been going on for a long time prior to that and would have gone on whether it happened or not. But I'm curious as to how you see the effect of the interstate. It's completion date a couple years down the road or so—I think they're talking about thirty months, something like that—what do you see happening? How do you see that affecting us?
Certainly, as you know, I have been a supporter of building that road
for a long time. And a big part of my interest in seeing that road built
was not related to the economic value of the road. I hope it has a
positive economic value, but my concern was that the road that's there
now is a very, very dangerous road. With the growth of traffic it
becomes more dangerous. There was a number of elderly folk killed there
around the intersection of 19-23 and the Big Branch Road in Mars Hill.
And it was because, putting the local people—the elderly local
folk—in an environment that they hadn't been accustomed to
made it difficult for them to negotiate that. I wanted to make sure that
we had the safest possible road that we could get to handle the traffic
that was there and the
To a more remote place, do you think?
I don't think that those folk are moving to a more remote place. I think what's happening in many cases is that as these people age, they want to get closer to a higher level of health care. Closer to the hospitals, if you will. I think that's a part of it. I think a part of it may be that people are to the point where they really don't want to deal with four seasons. The sunshine sounds good year round.
You were saying that one of the things that has really kept you here is
your love of community, of culture, of the mores of the population here.
How does this particular kind of change, where there is a major
influx—what I feel is a major
Rob, that's the thing that really concerns me as much as anything when I look at this county and the future—that while we still have the opportunity to build strong communities, the communities are not nearly as strong as they were when times were hard. Good times have broken down that community, if you will. People are going their separate ways. They can go and they can do without their neighbors. They're going in a lot of different directions. They're not coming together and working together and playing together and celebrating together. While there's still some community support in times of crisis, that level of support certainly is nothing compared to what it was when times were really hard.
I mean, [Highway] 25-70, the four lane out here just changed everybody's life because of the access it provided to Weaverville, Asheville, that kind of thing. One of the net effects of that is that people do choose to leave to go out to work. That means time that is not spent in the community or on their particular piece of land.
And Rob, I am a strong believer in the consolidated high school. The loss of the community school—the K-12 community school, if you will—has certainly hurt a lot of communities in the mountains. I can remember when there were five or six K-12 high schools in this county, and there was a real sense of community with those schools.
How was that exhibited? You were at the island—at ( ) Island, and there for all twelve years. How was that sense of place around that school exhibited?
That's a good question. It's not one that I had really thought about,
but I think people identified with the activities of that school. They
came and supported those
I would think that you probably knew everybody there.
Probably so.
How many students were there?
Well, I'm not sure how many was in the school at the time I was there, but I think there was like thirty-six in my graduating class.
Actually, that's a pretty goodly number.
We were one of the two larger schools in the county. Marshall and Mars Hill were the largest schools in the county, and obviously we were fierce opponents.
That was my next question. With these individual community schools—K- 12s—was there a fair amount of competitiveness between those schools?
Oh, yes. And that in some ways, was one of the downsides, because that rivalry got very intense on occasion.
Did it get played out into the wider community?
Oh, yes. It wasn't just the school kids, it was the communities. And then it kind of played out also in that the other schools—Spring Creek, Hot Springs, and Laurel in particular, and to some degree Walnut—Walent and Marshall used to be fierce rivals. But those other schools didn't like Marshall or Mars Hill at all.
Is that because they were the two bigger schools?
Bigger schools, the county seat, and more resources.
I've been here a long time, but still you kind of look, especially with the school bond issue that's being going on for the last couple of years, you can still get a real strong whiff of that competitiveness between the individual communities and how those dollars are allocated. There is still a lot of competition.
One of the things that concerns me right now—I can understand Mars Hill wanting a middle school. The county currently has one middle school. While I understand the community wanting that six, seventh, and eighth grade portion of their students back in their community, it concerns me in that the county does not have the resources to provide the same level of opportunity for two schools that it does when it has only one school. I'm fearful that if that middle school is divided, the opportunities will be diminished.
Yet, at the same time, there's definitely community members in Mars Hill who are just adamant about wanting a second middle school in Mars Hill, and feeling that that is the only way that their children's needs can really be addressed.
And at the same time, there are a number of parents and students in the Mars Hill area that don't necessarily feel that way. It's not one of those things that has total community—
Support, yeah.
I know one family there who has a daughter that's finishing middle school this year, and a younger daughter that's getting ready to go into the middle school. The younger daughter is so afraid that they'll split the school and she won't go to the middle school. She's gone through the experiences that her sister has had, and her sister has had such a good experience there, that she wants to follow her tracks in that regard.
You know, I still see the competitiveness between Marshall and Walnut. I guess that must go back to when the county seat was named, or even before that. Marshall won by one vote over Walnutt, which was Jule Hill, something like that?
There was a story about a fellow who had not made up his mind as to how
he was going to vote between Marshall and Walnut. His neighbor was very
strongly in favor of Marshall, so he gave this man some gourd seed to
encourage him to vote for Marshall to be the county seat. It's said that
for the want of gourd seed, Marshall became the county seat of Madison.
[Laughter].
You were mentioning your support for the I-26 corridor and long term support for the corridor. I'm curious if you could give me a little history of that road, going back to I-40 time; if you could take it back that far and tell me a little bit about the history of the I-26 corridor.
I think it's interesting, Rob. The folk in Madison County were very, very angry about Interstate 40 going down to Pigeon River. That road replaced 25-70. The 25-70 corridor in fact is the most direct route from Asheville to Knoxville.
Right. And had been the existing route.
Had been the existing route.
As you were saying earlier, that really had a great effect on the flourishing that this community—everything from Howard Allen's Wrecking Service to all of the little shops and stores and cafes along the way.
Right. So the folk—particularly in the central part of the county—was angry and felt that they had been shafted by the state.
Why was that decision made?
The prevailing thinking at that time was because Haywood had significantly stronger political clout in Raleigh with the decision makers. Dan Moore was a rising political star in Haywood County, and sometime after that—about the time that 40 opened, Dan became governor. He wasn't governor when the decision was made to build the road down Pigeon River, but shortly thereafter he became governor.
That political clout, then, was a function of Dan Moore, but also I would assume Canton and the paper mill.
Sure. And the population base was much larger over there than through Madison. I can remember people in this county saying, "Can you imagine, they're paying a million dollars a mile to pave that road down the Pigeon River?"
[Laughs]
The Appalachian Regional Commission developed a network of highways to
kind of break up the isolation of the region, and the road from
Asheville to Johnson City was one of the ARC corridor routes. There was
a lot of talk when that was done, which would have been probably the
late '60s. That's when that really became a prominent topic of
discussion. The idea of that road really became very interesting to a
lot of people. Actually, there had been talk of a major road through
there, I've been told, since the turn of the century. I've heard Matt
Magoo tell about someone standing up in the gap of that mountain back in
the early 1900s, talking about sometime in the future there will be this
road connecting Asheville, North Carolina and Tennessee. Then, I think
what really brought this back to the front burner was in the 1980s,
Tennessee—the legislature—wanted to raise their
gasoline tax. The legislature was going to act on this. The legislators
in a bi-partisan way, from East Tennessee, got together and said,
"Okay,
I know when talk was beginning about the I-26 corridor in Madison County, certainly the safety issue was predominant in people's mind. The other argument was the issue of development—both economic and community development—that it would bring. I guess the safety issue is obvious. It is one of the more dangerous roads in the state, and the statistics are there to prove that. Economic development, on the other hand, has always been a tougher issue in a place like Madison County.
A big part of that has to do with the topography. It also in large
measure has to do with a number of people and the lack of job training
that these folk have had, by and large. A lot of folk have this
misconception that all you've got to do is tell this big industry that
we've got these people here that are hard workers and will do a good job
for them, and this company will want to locate its plant here. Well,
obviously it's much
Or to northern Mexico.
Exactly. And the reality in my humble and feeble opinion, is that manufacturing is not going to serve our job needs of the future. It's not going to serve any community's job needs in the future. We've got to look at education, job training, entrepreneurship, creativity to meet the job needs of the growing community.
Is your sense that something like I-26—not just I-26, but all the other things—are then going to almost make it incumbent that we have that education, that job training, and that's going to push those issues a little bit more?
I certainly hope so, to be honest with you. I firmly believe that in the years to come the individual is going to have to be much more responsible for his employment than he's been in the past. This idea of going to work for a big company and moving up the line or stay there long enough to get a good retirement, that's a thing of the past. You're going to be changing jobs more often. You're going to be in jobs that don't last for long periods of time. Just by their very nature they're going to be automated out of existence, or new products or services are going to take their place. A person has got to be a lot more creative, a lot more flexible, and a lot better educated.
In a way, Madison County's indigenous population is uniquely suited to
that challenge. We talked about this man meeting the college-educated
person and realizing that that person might have had a lot of book
reading, but he really didn't know much
I think that's what it is, Rob. I think we've got to hone what we like
to call that native intelligence. That mountain ingenuity, problem
solving, if you will. It's amazing. When this area was primarily an
agriculture area, and that wasn't that many years ago, there were very
few welding shops around. If something broke and had to be welded,
they'd find a neighbor that could weld it. Or if it could be fixed a
different way, they'd figure out a different way to fix it that was
low-tech, no cost. [Recorder is turned off and on again].
If you had a single wish for this place that has been your home all your life, what would it be?
[Sighs]. [Laughter].
I love it when questions cause people to breathe deeply.
I believe so strongly in community development that what I'd really like to see is a reinvigoration or a retooling of this whole community concept. Build community in its truest form—getting folk in a certain geographic area to come together and work on common issues and common problems in a spirit of creativity, [and] do interesting and innovative things to make their community the most livable and most enjoyable possible. Where people really did care for each other, really did take care of each other. I think if we have that a lot of our other issues would certainly be diminished.
When I lecture, I sometimes show a slide of a group of rafters on a river. When I first moved here, what I heard from local people about the river is, "You stay away from the river. It's really dangerous." Now and again, you'd see one or two people out rafting it or canoeing it. Now we have ( ) of 40,000 people that raft the river on a yearly basis, with four, five, six rafting companies operating eight, nine months out of the year. Yet, it's also interesting to me that if one traces the history in this county, one recognizes that tourism has played a role in this county for a very long time, ranging from the resort of Hot Springs and the golf course there to people hiking in the area.
Or the drovers using the trails along the river to move products.
Exactly. Do you see tourism as almost coming back in fashion, or playing an increased role?
I think it already is. You look at Hot Springs, and just like with the spa there bringing folk in from a wide area—it's interesting, there's been very little development with the springs themselves, but they are attracting a wider and wider group of folk. So, it's already taking place. I think the real challenge for it, Rob, is to find the balance. What is the balance? How can we be that gem that attracts the folk to come here, because we have all these outdoor opportunities? And how can we keep those outdoor opportunities as pristine and protected as they need to be, while still using them?
One of the things that I see is that the conflicts that seem to happen here seem to be breaking down more on native-born people versus newcomers coming into the area. That there is this kind of cultural divide there, a little bit. Do you feel like that's a significant thing? How do we deal with stuff like that?
I don't really know how we deal with it. I know it's there to some extent. I know that there has been peaks and valleys in that for a long period of time. We've had an incident here and an incident there that will heighten the focus on the insider/outsider issues. That's part of my wish for real community, where these two groups and all the other groups that are here—in terms of the things that divide us—are able to come together and say, "Certainly there are issues where we differ, but there's many more issues where we agree." Just like the environment. Generally speaking, people perceive that the folk moving in are much more environmentally conscious than the folk that are here. But then you look at what the people who had to make a living off of this land did, and a lot of their practices were pretty environmentally sensitive. They knew how to get along with the land and not abuse it to any great extent. They didn't consider it environmentalism, but they respected the fact that if they were going to live next year off this same land, they had to take care of it this year, too.
Right. It didn't make sense to poison it. I find it interesting that—for lack of a better word—alternative crowd that is moving in. You may meet people who are real involved in herbs, for example, homeopathy. These people are absolutely astounded when I tell them that if they were to talk to a local person who was about sixty or sixty- five years old, chances are that person went to an herb doctor in their early life. Anyone older than that certainly did. They're absolutely astounded when they hear that. It's another point in common that they have. This was a very natural place to live.
One of the things that I told a lot of folk over the years, and one of
the things that I've been proudest of, is that some
people—both locals and non-locals—have seen me as a
bridge, if you will. I'm greatly honored by being seen in that role,
because that's
Right. And they will definitely be there if you need them. Do you feel that your life experience might be classified as typical of life experience of other county residents?
Probably not, Rob, because I have been pushed to get involved in a wide variety of things, and been willing to step out and challenge—if you will, to step out and get involved in a wide variety of things. An awful lot of local folk have neither the opportunity nor necessarily the desire or the need to venture out and get involved in different things to the extent that I have. To me, it's been great personal growth and great personal satisfaction.
Is your sense that it's difficult for native-born county residents to really understand and accept all of the changes that are happening?
I sometimes wonder if many local people reflect on the changes that have taken place in their lifetime, as I do periodically. I drive half an hour to work and back each day, so that gives me an opportunity to do a lot of thinking. Thanks to some Don Petty hammered dulcimer music that I can put on and listen to in my truck, I can reflect on a lot of things. And one of the things I think about periodically is just how amazing it has been. The dramatic change that has taken place in my life, things that I would have never imagined to occur, have occurred.
Give me another couple of examples of some of those really major things. We've talked about electricity and roads, and new people coming in.
And the variety of jobs and the educational opportunities, and the fact that with computers we can be here and be in touch with the world. We've got people living on the mountain tops and as connected and involved in their job as if they were in downtown Manhattan.
It was probably a stretch of your imagination that you got electricity and finally got that radio and were able to listen to the Grand Ole' Opry.
Well, we were listening to the Grand Ole' Opry before we got electricity. We had a battery radio that we plugged up every Saturday night, and we used to listen to the Grand Ole' Opry.
This is your family?
Yes.
And would you have friends over?
Oh, yes.
And cook a meal?
Not necessarily cook a meal, but I can remember having people in to listen to the Grand Ole' Opry. One of the things that I still very much enjoy is old time radio shows. I've got a collection of old time radio shows that I enjoy very much.
That's great. [Laughs]
And we won't talk about cell phone towers.
No, we won't talk about cell phone towers, of course. That's another conversation, I think. One that seems to be playing a role, though.
END OF INTERVIEW