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Post by The Folks @ TanneryWhistle.com on Dec 3, 2003 19:49:39 GMT -5
Well, it seems to me that any Appalachian board that is supposed to have opinions about mountain culture and tradition will have to say something...eventually....about Horace Kephart and his book, Our Southern Highlanders. I read "at it" for years, but finally, a few years ago, I read it....twice. Since Kephart has a reputation of being the first (and for many years, the only) "interpreter" of who and what we are, and since the author was a failed librarian from St. Louis, I guess I sorta read with a bit of defensiveness. I also picked up on the fact that Kephart was writing for magazines and consequently, he felt a need to make his subject appealing. Nothing is more appealing than a subject that carries a gun, drinks corn whiskey and will suffer no insult to his kin. In all fairness to Horace, he made us exciting, perhaps a little frightening and definitely "other worldly."
Well, I don't want to exhaust this topic in one posting. I think I'll wait for a response to what I have said so far......... Gary
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