From all I hear Bellamarie, although I have not seen the movie, the movie is supposed to be far less than reading the book - I downloaded the book long before he became a household name but only read the first chapter setting it aside - I remember when living in Kentucky and every Friday night the long long bumper to bumper traffic of parents coming from places like Ohio and Illinois back to the mountains to be with their children and then the long line that was not as bumper to bumper because folks left at different times but Sunday the highway had the traffic going north back to the states with jobs and so, that would have been the generation being brought up by grandparents that would be the age of J.D.'s parents - making it a couple of generations now that had that same experience of children living with grandparents in the mountains and of course those who left for work up north never really did fit in and were the butt of so many jokes - Hillbilly was the derogatory slang for being stupid, inbred, unwashed, poor, of which some of the poverty was simply living in isolated communities much as folks lived back in the 17 hundreds and 18 hundreds. Most of the music was and still is old, originally English and Scotch Ballads and even the way of speaking went back to that time in history.
I've many stories of bringing various aids to mountain communities through the Girl Scouts from Lexington including one summer where small groups of girls lived in a community to bring history to the community through nightly gatherings - most thought all native Americans were dead since their way of keeping abreast was watching movies and all the cowboy movies killed all the Indians - this was in the late 50s and early 60s - we had to pick up some supplies in Berea and brought a couple of children with us to see beyond their 'hollow' and one boy, about 10, spent an hour snapping on and off light switches and opening and closing interior doors neither of which had he ever seen. Also I remember my son being sick in our station wagon full of girls I was bringing to a couple of communities and I needed water to wash out the back - stopped at a small house and asked for some water and was handed a pail and told about a mile down the road there was an outcropping under which there was a pool of water, just brush aside the green - at the time I thought if I had to do this everytime I wanted water I would not be washing things as often as was my habit with water coming out of a faucet in my home.
However to be surrounded by a forest of trees and other wild plants, and know them all and what to do with each to realize instead of watching TV the usual practice was to sit on the front porch or wooden step and someone played a string instrument while families singing one after the other familiar music - in fact one house had wires strung from floor to ceiling on the front porch and was their musical instrument that they either plucked or bowed with the whole house the box for sound. As a gift one gentleman made me a dulcimer that I still cherish... and yes, with everyone jammed into a small space and home brew being readily available not every house/cabin was paradise. After Robert Kennedy was filmed meeting with families government money poured into the mountain communities that was seldom used appropriately - there is always graft by some regardless how much money or the cause.
I'm thinking the book is about J.D.'s experience a generation after my close encounter with the hills of Kentucky. Need to read it since Drugs were not on the scene yet in the late 50s and early 60s so that would be another layer.
I need to share this website - I only learned my sister as doing this and I was impressed - she has developed this wonderful web site devoted to Osteoporosis - very informative... includes treatments from western medicine to herbs, eastern medicine - the site is inclusive of causes and treatments on and on...
https://www.osteopenia3.com/Started yet another book - a light read
The Growing Season had no clue till I was on Amazon and a series kept popping up that I know now is based on any recent purchase ans sure enough
The Growing Season is the first is a whole series - I was hoping for an end and not a continuation of her situation. A young women living in a mid-western city working for an Ad agency that just fired 3/4s of the staff in a very humiliating way - her two best friends pick her up and nearly a year goes by without any bites when her Aunt calls about her Uncle being very ill and her parents taking him in. The parents own the 'everything and anything' type of hardware store in a very small town and now her mother will be tied up and not be working the store and would she consider coming home to help while she is still putting out bids for work in her field... Home she goes not intending to stay but one thing leads to another - she finds a home to rent that is a farm house and and and - the owners are two elderly brothers who never married. One in a care center and the other needing to be and will go rooming with his brother on a trial bases that the nephew hopes sticks... no sparks yet but I foresee the nephew being around as more than a landlord - solid and kind just as the town and her family - we shall see - not deep but a light summer read.
Still reading Eco's
Inventing the Enemy - difficult to stay with this in that all I do is shake my head up and down - nothing really new just seeing through different eyes what has been there all along. Have you opened the Eco book you were taken with Frybabe?
Also still reading
The Ride of Her Life - now that she seems to be more about chasing notoriety by accepting one city's request after another for her visit that includes her speaking or leading a parade or some sort of special event I've sorta lost interest - it is no longer an adventure story... or at least not the adventure of her, her horses and dog experiencing new landscapes and back road experiences. I keep thinking it will pick up so I have not completely put it aside.
