This Part of the Country Reflected

May 15, 2017

It's seventy miles of hills between Buckhorn and Berea, the college town where we plan to take a day off. The only places to camp in between are in Booneville twenty miles away and up a big hill in Bighill about sixty miles away. The fact that we've woken up tired every morning for the last week despite sleeping well makes the decision simple: take the short day today and have a moderate ride into Berea tomorrow.

It seems like a good call. The road heads straight up out of Buckhorn and I feel tired and sluggish and old. In between moments of feeling sorry for myself I realize that the landscape has started a subtle shift. I start to see small gardens and pastures where before it was just trees and weeds. The hills in the distance aren't quite so tall. We see less of the sheer, jagged rock faces that have so far defined Eastern Kentucky. And where yesterday there was garbage next to the road, now it's garbage but also some wildflowers.

The Appalachians are starting to loosen their grip.

We roll into Booneville in time for an early lunch. There's one place in town, a diner called the Ole Bus Stop. As we walk in I notice an old man with a graying beard stretched over a sagging face the color and texture of leather. He takes a long look at me while pulling a longer drag off his cigarette. It turns out smoking sections still exist in the year 2017 in Owsley County, Kentucky.

Jerry and I both go with the special, where you choose your meat, two sides, a bread, and a drink for like six bucks. It turns out the meal deal of the century is found in the year 2017 in Owsley County, Kentucky.

The rough edges of the last few hundred miles look softer in Booneville. It seems more like the small towns through which we passed in our last few days in Virginia. It feels a little healthier, a little happier. But the look of the town and the bucolic valley that brought us here hide truths more serious and heart wrenching than I ever could have imagined.

Of the more than 3,100 counties in the United States, Owsley County is by some measures the poorest. Forty-five percent of its residents live below the federal poverty live. More than half of them receive food stamps. Government benefits account for fifty-three percent of personal income. Farming, mining, and factory work in the area have all declined dramatically in recent decades. As a result, the county's official unemployment rate sits above ten percent, more than twice the national average. The unofficial rate could be two or three times higher.

Kristen reads to me from an Al Jazeera article that tells the story of a local woman who started a non-profit organization to help children who could get proper meals at school during the week, but had little or no food available at home over the weekend. So she created a program that handed out to these children backpacks with enough food to last them for the two days they weren't in school.

A few months into the program, the woman found herself growing more and more ill, with headaches, body aches, and feelings of sickness greater than she had ever felt in her life. But she hadn't contracted a disease, nor had cancer taken hold in her body. The symptoms, her doctor told her, were the result of exposure to methamphetamine residue.

The program now uses plastic grocery bags instead of backpacks.

When President Trump talked of this American carnage in his inaugural address back in January, most people I know thought it was a gross overstatement of the problems faced by the average citizen of this country. But viewed through the lens of someone who lives in a run-down house eight miles outside of Booneville, Kentucky, it doesn't seem extreme at all.

Kristen and Jerry and I spend the afternoon and evening beneath the shade cast by the beautiful pavilion behind Booneville's First Presbyterian Church. We leave only when it's cool enough to make the walk eight or ten blocks to the dairy bar at the far end of town.

On the way back, we notice a stray dog watching us from the shadows in front of a dilapidated old auto repair shop. He's just a pup, brown and black in the way that all stray dogs in Kentucky have become brown and black through the years. He has a cute little face with curious eyes. I can tell he wants to come over and play a little and get some affection.

He starts to walk toward us, but as soon as I step in his direction his back legs go weak and his back lowers, as if he has some spinal problem. But soon we realize that he doesn't; he's just been so badly treated in his short life that his first reaction to every movement is to cower in fear, to find low ground, to shrink into nothing. Yet his kind soul is strong enough to overcome it. He inches toward us a few times, then turns back a few times, before finally coming up to me. And then he's all sniffs and licks and love. He has bent but has not broken. Given a good home he would be the best dog a family could ever hope for.

I look back at the pup as we walk away a few minutes later. In him I see this part of the country reflected. It seems at first glance like it might be doing alright, maybe scraping by. But as soon as you look a little deeper you find stark, existential sadness. And even if you wanted to help, you can't imagine in what possible way you could.

Later, a westbound rider named Bobby rolls in and brightens our evening. He's from Richmond but has the unmistakable accent of someone who's originally from Philly. He also has the unmistakable lightness and joy of a young man who set off on a grand adventure and is loving every minute of it. We were already feeling great about the world, but Bobby lifts everyone's spirits. The four of us spend hours swapping stories from the hundreds of miles that brought us here. Smiles and laughter echo off the metal roof of the pavilion.

Everyone settles into bed before the last streaks of pink and purple have faded from the sky. Plans are made, alarms are set, phone numbers are swapped. Big heat returns to our lives tomorrow and we all want to find ourselves far down the road before the sun breaks over the horizon. But we also want to meet back up in Berea and keep the good times going.

Today's ride: 19 miles (31 km)
Total: 730 miles (1,175 km)

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