SOUTHERN HIGHLANDERS

[Music] these are the southern appalachians the southern highlands great silent giants sprawled full length on the land rolling and tossing into eight states their boots lie in pennsylvania their massive heads and shoulders are mountains in tennessee kentucky north carolina and georgia high above the twisting valleys they doze in the clouds marking time by the century sometimes they seem to be ghosts on the gray horizon shrouded in mist like an old man's memories from the coves and valleys hard top roads wind quickly to the topmost peaks leading the stranger up and up to the towers of the blue ridge unakas and smokies these are highways in the real sense the blue ridge parkway skyline drive and trails cut high in the great smokies national park [Music] the man going up meets the cold sparkling creek tumbling down down over timeless rock and swiftly through the forest to the sheltered pool where the fishermen pull azalea trillium trailing arbutus rhododendron 200 kinds of native plants [Music] all this was waiting when man came into the highland first the cherokee indian then the spaniard hunting treasure then the scotch irish german and juvenile settlers in search of home sites they came nearly 200 years ago cleared the wilderness to build log cabins bought the forest for cropland then settled down walled in from the rest of the world this is the story of their descendants of people who still live by simple honest values in a world grown complicated all around [Music] the man who never strays from the highway will never learn the story or know the soul of the highlands it lies farther back in homes hidden deep in the hollow and in the classroom of a mountain school at half past three on a school day afternoon the mountains called the children of the southern highlands the quiet old hills are jealous of schools and school teachers i know because i grew up in these mountains i teach with textbook and blackboard but the mountain uses magic and charm in my sight these children are the hope of a better future for the south the mountain wants them to listen to the music of tumbling rivers and get their feet tangled in a large lake but because they are mountain children they listen to me and to the mountain too and keep the best of each a hilltile starts life with just about what his father and grandfather had pure air pure water a far view from the front porch of his father's house these things he doesn't have to work for but everything else he pays for and toil he starts early courage pride and love of freedom are strong in his blood those same qualities led his forefathers into the mountain wilderness nearly two centuries ago they battled the forest of their cornfields and took steady aim down the long barrel of a rifle when they needed meat for the table they came from scotland and ireland mostly planish people the dry humor and gunpowder tempered sentimental too lovers of song and respecters of god that's why their hearts melted when they saw the green giants of the highlands they were humbled the way we are today ben blair put it in words last sunday when i saw him just before church well okay i think a man back here in these mountains enjoys himself just about as much as any people there is on earth living there's nothing to bother him much and he can serve the lord all this land of our don't belong to us it belongs to our maker and he has got control of it all if he gives us a rain in the sunshine the seed well we have good crops and i think that's the greatest thing in life that could be handed down to us you just live for the lord while we're here and invite again for a better world or beyond [Music] is [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] [Music] is [Music] the first hill people started with what they found they cut logs to build cabins and split chinos to cover the roofs then they settled down locked in the mountains for a century and a half it's no wonder today's children are close to the old ways sometimes very close [Music] in all his days john mcdowell has never had a spoonful of white sugar on his table his daddy left him a sorghum press and he makes his own sweetening john himself feeds the sorghum cane into the press and his old mayor has been circling round john as long as i can remember i had to smile when he told me the press was thought strong from an iron foundry way yonder in ohio and about 20 days are coming i'll just roll the last spell on the back of a mule critter [Music] john's wife lucy strains the squeezings through a patch of burlap she makes the best cornbread for miles around and her man makes the best sweetening the steam rises up like missed off the mountain and sweetens the air in the clearing [Music] john's brother herman stirs the sweet juice while it boils in the pan and gets thicker by the stir makes me almighty hungry when i'm near [Music] it [Music] if a man wanted a chair to sit on he made it himself and his women folk rolled the seats from corn sharks the hill woman made all the family's clothes time was when store-bought things flooded the mountains and folks were ashamed to own homemade things then the tourists came into the holland and carried on about the old-timey quilts and the home-forged ironworks so the loom and the ford came back to life i like to see the shuttle and the bellows in the hands of a mountain girl or boy because i know there's a naturalness in it and it's something they'll always remember the way they'll remember the easy come rhythm of an old-fashioned mountain square dime big rings circle left [Music] one and a half promenades [Music] ladies [Music] a new kind of music has come to the southern highlands the hum of electric generators echoing back into the farthest valley men harness the rivers and strong wires across the peaks and valleys bringing cheap power to a land of kerosene lamps and long back muscles power for new industries new jobs for people the music came too late for the old and weary but at the tonic for young people just starting out sue white told me last week she means to buy an electric stove for her new kitchen [Music] sue is kindly persistent when she sets her heart on something her daughter is too i know she's one of my pupils new ideas and farming came along with the power lines and light bulbs a mountain farmer years ago planted according to spells of the moon [Music] when his land wore out he cleared some more he knew there was something wrong but that was the way his father did it all that is changing now he can talk things over with a county farm agent and the federal government's farm advisor he learns how to grow tobacco how to start the young plants in a sunny patch and harvest the crop in the early tobacco puts cash in his pocket for necessities that he can't grow or build he hears about plowing a furrow along the contours of a sloping land so the rain won't wash away the good topsoil and he let machines do more and more of his work that way he gets more done and doesn't feel so tired when the sun goes down he learns the sense of rotating crops growing cover crops to be plowed under so the soil he farms today will be rich and sweet for his sons it used to be that a tree was cut down if it was in the way now the highland farmer protects his woodlot and thinks of his lumber as a crop it's a new idea with him he takes care of the forest and the forest takes care of him these proud old mountains have a way of studying over us and bossing us around but we're beginning to talk back now every chance i get i go and visit with kingfolk of youngsters i have in school because old and young i try to make them understand that we've all got to go along together if we're going to get anywhere tall [Music] our people love this land they mean to stay here until the mountains tumble into the valleys but they need no longer be slaves to the mountains if they listen to the music of the future the hum of dynamos and a song of machines [Music] a poet once said that something hill child dies down to level land we all know that the highlands are a little bit poorer for every child who goes away from them [Music] my dream is to make life worth the struggle in the highlands that's why i feel easy in my mind when night comes on the mountain and i hear my neighbor singing the old ballads to his grandchildren [Music] [Music] little birds would sing so sweetly and even to i know a good man is helping me make my dream come true helping me hold the hearts of the young americans closer and closer to home [Applause] [Applause] you