Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Although I was clearly climbing high up into the mountains, the woods all around were
so dense that I had no views. But at the summit the trees parted like curtains to provide a
spectacular outlook over the valley on the other side. It was like coming over the top of
the earth, like the view from an airplane. Steep green wooded hills with alpine meadows
clinging to their sides stretched away for as far as the eye could see until at last they were
consumed by a distant and colorful sunset. Before me a sinuous road led steeply down to
a valley of rolling farms spread out along a lazy river. It was as perfect a setting as I had
everseen.Idrovethroughthesoftlightofdusk,absorbedbythebeauty.Andthethingwas,
every house along the roadside was a shack. This was the heart of Appalachia, the most
notoriously impoverished region ofAmerica, andit wasjust inexpressibly beautiful. Itwas
strangethattheurbanprofessionalsfromthecitiesoftheeasternseaboard,onlyacoupleof
hours' drive to the east, hadn't colonized an area of such arresting beauty, filling the dales
with rusticky weekend cottages, country clubs and fancy restaurants.
It was strange, too, to see white people living in poverty. In America, to be white and
impoverished really takes some doing. Of course, this was American poverty, this was
white people's poverty, which isn't like poverty elsewhere. It isn't even like the poverty
in Tuskegee. It has been suggested with more than a touch of cynicism that when Lyndon
Johnson launched his great War on Poverty in 1964, the focus was placed on Appalachia
not because it was so destitute but because it was so white. A littlepublicized survey at the
time showed that 40 percent of the poorest people in the region owned a car and a third
of those had been bought new. In 1964, my future father-in-law in England was, like most
peoplethere,yearsawayfromowninghisfirstcarandevennowhehasneverownedanew
one, yet no one ever called him destitute or sent him a free sack of flour and some knit-
ting wool at Christmas. Still, I can't deny that by American standards the scattered shacks
around me were decidedly modest. They had no satellite dishes in the yard, no Weber bar-
becues, no station wagons standing in the drive. And I daresay they had no microwaves in
the kitchen, poor devils, and by American standards that is pretty damn deprived.
