By Drew Gallagher, ADVANCE COLUMNIST
All That’s Unseen: An Appalachian Memoir by Emilee Hackney, a UVA administrative assistant in the English Department, was released in July this year. It’s about growing up in Tazewell, Virginia, then going on to Harvard and the profound disconnect between her life in Appalachia and her life at an Ivy League school. She has no immediate plans to run for vice president.
I have not read Hackney’s memoir, but I have read a few summaries, and there seem to be some recurring themes—Mountain Dew, drugs, and Ivy League educations—that J.D. Vance mined in his earlier Appalachian memoir Hillbilly Elegy, which I have not read either.
As I reflected upon the success of these two very similar works of New York Times bestselling nonfiction, I realized that my next book needs to be a memoir about my own modest upbringing in a tree-lined suburb of Reading, Pennsylvania, which was not in Appalachia, but was sort of next door, to my improbably storied career at Mary Washington College, which was not an Ivy, but there was some ivy on the side of the brick bridge over the creek near the dining hall. Here are some of the highlights:
MOUNTAIN DEW
As with all things hillbilly or Appalachia, my childhood also featured Mountain Dew as a beverage of choice. Just not a beverage of choice of me and my friends or anyone else I knew. My buddy Robbie’s Dad had a preference for RC Cola, but he told Robbie on a number of occasions that he did not buy a case of RC in cans to quench the thirst of an entire neighborhood. Most of the fathers in our neighborhood drank Schmidt beer, including Robbie’s Dad, so I’m not sure why he couldn’t spare the occasional RC. Neither RC nor Schmidt tasted like Mountain Dew, but sometimes when we explored the creek behind my house, we found rusted-out cans of Mountain Dew. Our creek ultimately flowed into the Chesapeake Bay, however, and was not near Tazewell, Virginia or Middletown, Ohio.
DRUGS
I have never bought or sold drugs, but I definitely would have sold drugs had I known that was an option to make money and help me buy more baseball cards. (Or Star Wars cards if I had known there was a card showing C-3PO with an enormous robot erection in 1977.) The first halves of hillbilly memoirs are reliant upon entering the drug marketplace at a young age, so I would like to offer that I tried to smoke marijuana in my youth at Carsonia Lake with my friend Tom. We had just spent a long day of shoveling and then playing ice hockey on the frozen lake and we were exhausted. Everyone else had gone home, and in the pocket of my letterman jacket was the retainer case of a high school friend of mine. I happened to know that inside the retainer case were a few pinches of marijuana and rolling papers.
I asked Tom if he wanted to try it, and Tom, being a big Beatles’ fan, was game and hopeful he, too, might write something as brilliant as “Rocky Raccoon” though he was not musically inclined. The daylight was slowly fading from the Eastern Pennsylvania horizon. A slight breeze was spreading a thin layer of snow back onto the playing surface we had shoveled hours earlier. In this cinematic moment—perfect for the film based on the book—I opened the blue retainer case. I remember it had a flower sticker on the lid, which would be effective symbolism as I began my descent into drug addiction. The green leaves and stems nestled inside were the same color as the army men I had so often played with as a boy beneath the trailer where I might have lived if I had not lived in a four-bedroom house with a basketball court in the backyard. The seductress of drugs called to me in that moment, and I could see my life spiraling lyrically out of control just like the unsmoked marijuana that was now spiralling literally across the lake in the slight breeze.
Later, my high school friend who had loaned me his letter jacket and in doing so tried to get me addicted to drugs was pissed when I gave him his retainer case back (and the jacket) and the case was empty and I didn’t give him any money either. He never talked to me again after that day, and in my darker moments I often wonder where he is today. Actually, I can tell you where he is today because we are friends on Facebook, and he posts a lot of pictures of dinners and outings with his family.
IVY LEAGUE
Most of my high school teachers did not think I was Ivy League material, and that was especially true of Frau Grugan after I pulled a D- in the final half of German IV. Even my guidance counselor conspired against me when I asked her for information on Notre Dame University and she gave me pamphlets for Notre Dame College in New Hampshire. (This anecdote is painfully true. and I include it because I still find it confounding and wanted to mention it knowing full well that Notre Dame is not an Ivy). I wanted to prove my high school doubters wrong, which lasted until I got my first set of SAT scores back and decided to ply my academic talents at a small liberal arts school in Virginia with a 66-34 ratio of women to men. Had I opted to go to Harvard instead of Mary Washington College, I’m sure I would have doubted my abilities and wondered if I belonged, but my second run at the SATs had already confirmed where I did, and where I didn’t, belong.
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FXBG Advance columnist Drew Gallagher’s book Funny for Nothing was released on July 28 by Long River Press. It’s available for sale in the Fredericksburg area at Novel Bookstore (212 William Street), Liberty Town Arts (916 Liberty Street), The Card Cellar (915 Caroline Street), Wren & Sparrow (807 Caroline Street), and Laudenbach Brewing in Stafford (45 Centreport Parkway, Unit 101). You can also buy it on Amazon.
