May 14, 2017
Eleven Years Less
"Did ya notice the straws next to the coffee and soda machines over there?" Jerry asks as we stand in front of the mini-mart at the center of town in Hindman.
"No, I didn't," I say. "Why?"
"There aren't any. David was telling me that they had to take 'em away. People were taking 'em and going into the bathroom and using 'em to snort stuff. So now they're all behind the counter and you have to ask the cashier if you want one."
The United States of America: land of the free, home of the brave, richest nation on Earth but now a place where you can't be trusted to handle plastic drinking straws on your own.
It's a perfect morning, cool and cloudless and sunny. The road winds through tunnels of trees along the bends of a placid creek. But of course this place is never ideal. Next to a run-down trailer I see a row of cages with the sides made from chain link fencing material. There's a skinny beagle puppy inside each one. Farther on I watch a dozen little ducklings splash through a narrow trickle of water at the road's edge, dodging empty plastic bottles of chocolate milk and boxes with the Kentucky Fried Chicken logo running down the side.
This is beautiful country. For the most part it is friendly country. But it is also heartbreaking country, a place of sadness and boredom and desperation with no obvious path toward anything else.
Then things go from sad to Fisty. That's the name of the last town in Knott County. It's followed by the town of Dwarf, which we learn was named for "Short Jerry" Combs, an early settler. Looking at the map for the area, it's full of names you'd never give your car, let alone the place you call home. It's Talcum and Dice, Busy and Typo, Vicco and Vest.
Even the biggest town in the area has a weird name: Hazard. Like just about everything around here, its healthiest days are a memory. Around its edges we ride past closed storefronts, rent-to-own furniture stores, and signs for checking cashing joints ("Owned by KY People") nailed into telephone poles. I try to imagine living here, working here, trying to become a part of the community, and having a rich and fulfilling life. Have lived where I've lived, worked where I've worked, and been a part of the communities I've known, it seems almost impossible. I look for common ground and see precious little.
Beyond Hazard we trade busy narrow roads for empty narrower roads. Most aren't much wider than a single lane. You might think the blind corners and sheer dropoffs and giant potholes would slow the cars down and keep them from driving in the middle of that single lane. You would be wrong.
For what it's worth, the average life expectancy in King County, Washington, where Seattle is located, is 79.2 years. In Perry County, Kentucky, it's just 68.3. That's eleven years less. With each passing hour we see more reasons for the difference.
"I didn't think a Ford Taurus could sound like that," I say to Kristen as a twelve-year-old sedan passes us but doesn't seem like it's engine is strong enough to pull it up the hill. "I don't think that thing is long for this world."
"It smells like my dad's boat," she says.
But out here, it fits. For every clean and put-together house there's a mobile home in complete disarray. We're passed by multiple cars near the lower limit of road-worthiness with five or six people crammed inside, each one either rail thin or fifty pounds overweight. I get the sense that these people are the ones who live in the far-off hollows down the narrow gravel tracks that snake away into the hills — the kind of places where you have to push away the branches with a stick to see the sunlight, as the old-timers around here like to say.
It just goes on and on: the row of rooster cages twelve deep; ATVs belching smoke and howling like a swarm of bees; skeletal stray cats; a town named Krypton; teenagers sitting in their front yards with the butts of their air rifles resting on their right knees, waiting to shoot at who knows what.
This is hillbilly country. There's no other word for it. I bet anyone who lives here would tell you the same.
The hills that stand between us and Buckhorn are long, steep, and numerous. My shirt becomes heavy with sweat. We grow very tired. We pedal very slow.
At a dairy bar beyond the top of the worst climb we meet back up with Jerry. He tells us about a man and woman he met at the gas station where he stopped for lunch just outside of Hazard.
"They were sittin' on this little retaining wall where my bike was parked, so I asked 'em if I could join 'em and they said sure. The guy was real quiet, didn't really talk much, didn't make eye contact. He said he had a stroke. He's like thirty-five. Well, he leaves, and she says that he got shot in the front yard of their house a while back. So then he thinks he knows who did it, so he goes out and confronts the guy and ends up getting beat up. Gets a fractured skull and that's what caused him to have the stroke.
"And then she's tellin' me about how she's been takin' care of her grandma, because her grandma took care of her when she was young. She said that her mom was a real hoochie goochie. I wasn't really sure what that meant, but she told me it's like, you know, mom was sneaking around on dad all the time. Anyway, she said he was a good dad, a coal miner, a hard worker. Tried to give her a good life and all that, tried to do what he could about the mom. But one night something happened and her mom got angry and pulled out a gun and shot her dad right in front of her. So she had to grow up with that."
Take away the part about the woman's dad being a coal miner and it could be a story straight out of the worst neighborhood in any major city in this country. Yet this is in Hazard, Kentucky, population 5,300.
We crank over a few more steep hills, then reach Buckhorn and an Army Corps of Engineers campground. Jim and Keith are already set up. We share stories about the day, as you do.
"We stopped in front of one of those closed restaurants," Keith says. "You know, the ones that look like they've been closed for years. But there were a couple of cars in the parking lot. It was right at that moment that a woman opened the door from the inside. And I looked in and I saw about half a dozen guys in there, all smoking and playing slot machines."
We're still in America. But more and more it feels like some alternate version that runs parallel to the one Kristen and I know, the one we grew up with, the one we live in. I want to see the good in these places, not just the bad. I want to hear the uplifting stories about these towns, not just the ones that make me shake my head in disbelief. I want to believe I'm traveling through a part of the country where the American Dream is still possible.
This is not easy.
Today's ride: 53 miles (85 km)
Total: 711 miles (1,144 km)
| Rate this entry's writing | Heart | 5 |
| Comment on this entry | Comment | 4 |
Well, maybe not *that* part of the state, so much.
A cyclist friend of mine from back home, a state cop, was transferred to Pikeville a couple of years ago. He's back in North-Central KY now, but he told me that he pretty much quit riding when he was down there, because he was too afraid.
When I was a teenager working for my father's mobile home business, we would occasionally sell a house trailer to someone in Pike or Hazard county. That was far enough from where we lived in Fleming County that we needed to stay overnight. I still remember how uneasy I felt hearing the random, frequent gun shots and the constant rumblings of the coal trucks.
6 years ago
I have always followed you on crazyguy..... I kept looking for your journal about your trip you were going to take last Spring and never found it, and recently realized you had removed all of your journals. Glad that I found you on this site. I love reading your journals Jeff. You are an incredible writer. I'm curious if you two finished this trip? Do you plan to add more to this journal?
Hope all is well.
6 years ago
But as has become typical, we weren't able to finish this trip due to circumstances we never could have predicted when we started. But there are a few more entries left to go, which I hope to get to soon. I promise, the surprise ending will be worth the wait.
6 years ago
Oh I'm sorry to hear that you weren't able to finish your trip. I was very interested to see what Kristen thought of the route you took some years ago. Since you had already taken this trip previously, I was looking forward to how different your experience would be this time, since you had Kristen along vs. being on your own. I'm glad to hear all is well though. That is the most important thing. I will look forward to reading the remainder of your journal once you have an opportunity to complete it. Wishing you and Kristen a Happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy your time with family and friends.
6 years ago