Appalachian Adjacent

(Hah, I’m funny — is it discipline, or is it the magic of scheduling posts?)

Last night, I essentially whined about feeling the overwhelming pressure from outside forces to do anything but write for myself. Today, I spill my brain onto the screen because the overflow is… messy. What began as a need to both advertise rhetoric, composition, and literature as more than just another box to check — or worse, some secret scheme to indocrinate the masses into believing that good writing skills and reading books are going to somehow lead to chaos — became an exquisite deep dive into orality, literacy, and even my beloved Ulmerian electracy. Combing through census data, birth/ marriage/ death records, and already-built family trees highlighted more than just an ancestral path for one person. The universe truly is made of tiny stories!

As an individual with Scots-Irish, Germanic, and Slavic ancestry, I see similarities in the folklore of the region blended with the lore shared by the indigenous tribes and brought by the enslaved peoples, which fascinates me. What are the common themes? As my students tend to learn, cryptids and folktales tend to be cautionary tales meant to teach morals and values — proving we are not so different from each other after all when considering the similarities among these legends and myths!

Of course, we cannot ignore the prevalence of regionalisms and varying dialects across the mountains. Although it has been nearly fifteen years since I arrived in Appalachia, I still struggle to discern certain accents and learn new idioms once in a while. A student visited my office with their grandfather last year, and the elderly gentleman was delighted to discuss how the Appalachian dialect has more in common with German than English! As I have begun analyzing some German lyrics, I have noticed this wise old man was absolutely correct in his observations.

Although I seemed resistant to attending conferences, I learned about the Appalachian Studies Association Conference and realized I had an opportunity for continued education — not just to learn more about the field, but also to learn about the concept of presenting in front of a considerably larger audience. My most difficult “crowd” to date consisted of 26 or 27 students aged 17 to 18 years, so visualizing a conference room with hundreds of my peers causes… nausea. (Perhaps that is too straightforward, but on the off chance you are an outside reader, I am remaining true to my voice — remember that whole “be authentic” trend from the 2010s? I believe my children call that “cringe” these days, but I digress.) However, I actually feel compelled to present something. Please don’t ask me what yet. The Appalachian Studies research only began in March of this year (2025) after I learned about a little something called a “Whistlin’ Jack.”

And with that, I leave you with the sage advice of the Appalachian elders: if you hear someone whistling outside after dark, first of all, no, you didn’t.