Tonight – Premiere of COAL

Posted in Coal on March 30th, 2011 by marklynn
Tonight – Premiere of COAL
The folks who took us to the Bering Sea in Deadliest Catch and behind the wheel in Ice Road Truckers, are now going into the mines. Tonight COAL premieres on Spike TV. Promotional materials say that the series “explores coal mining through the eyes of Mike Crowder and Tom Roberts, part-owners of Cobalt Mine in Westchester, West Virginia, and the area’s hard-working miners, families and community members.” I’m excited to hear Read More »


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City Garden – Pick the Plants

Posted in Food, History & Culture on March 27th, 2011 by marklynn
City Garden – Pick the Plants
At age five, I would pull the leafy tops of white potatoes until I was certain that something would come apart–the stems or my arms. My hands would be muddled red from tugging and brown from dirt. I’d grunt, unashamed that it took so much work to pull one plant. When the soil would start to bounce, I’d tip back, using all thirty five pounds of my body weight, leaning until dirt chunks blasted against my bare feet and I fell bac Read More »


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Closing Appalachian Culture

Posted in History & Culture on March 20th, 2011 by marklynn
Closing Appalachian Culture
Take all of your granny’s quilts, your Uncle Eb’s moonshine still, every arrowhead you’ve ever seen, and a few race cars, and put them under one roof. Sounds like one heck of a museum, right? Well, it was until last month. The Appalachian Cultural Museum, once a cornerstone of the Appalachian Studies program at Appalachian State University, is now officially closed. “It told the North Carolina mountains’ piece of hi Read More »


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Love and a Troubled Colon

Posted in Art & Lit on March 13th, 2011 by marklynn
Love and a Troubled Colon
Have you ever fallen for a dimwit? That is to say, have you ever overlooked social awkwardness, an oversized noggin, a nervous condition, or digestive problems because this person, though full of quirks, is nice to you, nicer than the rest of the world, and that just makes you happy? My hand is raised high in the air right now. If yours is too, then you might identify with Robert Gipe’s very short story “Troubled Colon.” It was Read More »


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Cougar Count – Have You Seen One?

Posted in Outdoors & Travel on March 6th, 2011 by marklynn
Cougar Count – Have You Seen One?
This week, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared the eastern cougar extinct. That, in and of itself, is no big surprise. The big cat once roamed the eastern forests, including all of the Appalachian range, but the last native cougar is thought to have been trapped by Rosarie Morin in Somerset County, Maine in 1938. What’s odd is that many scientist now believe that there never was an eastern cougar. The Charleston Gazette, The New Read More »


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