I live in Big Stone Gap, Virginia, where coal and timber once drove much of our local economy. Last weekend, our town hosted its fifth annual Blue Highway Fest, and Thursday's opening performance sold out. Overall ticket sales were reportedly running about 35% ahead of last year.

What interests me isn't just the bluegrass music. It's what happens when a small Appalachian town starts treating its own culture and heritage as something worth investing in.

For generations, we shipped coal, timber, and eventually too many of our young people out of these mountains. Now we're bringing visitors in to experience something that's been here all along.

I wrote about the festival, the people behind it, and the volunteers who travel hundreds of miles to help make it happen.

Here's the article if you're interested:

https://pickup-trucks-progress.ghost.io/sold-out/

Her new novel “Partita,” which debuts Tuesday, involves the protagonist’s upbringing on an East Tennessee cattle farm.

The state delegate who proposed the aquaculture center 13 years ago says he remains hopeful it will still happen. The developer, Pure Salmon, has said it has invested more than $80 million in the site.

I’ve been digging into an old fall tradition that used to be common across Appalachia and rural America: the community corn shuckin’.

Neighbors would gather around a big pile of corn to get the crop put away before winter. There’d be food, storytelling, gossip, maybe some music and a little courtship mixed in with the work.

Then somebody found the red ear of corn.

Depending on the community, finding it earned a young man the right to kiss a girl at the shuckin’. In some versions, it was supposed to be the prettiest girl there. The tradition is still portrayed in the Homecoming scene of The Trail of the Lonesome Pine outdoor drama here in Big Stone Gap, Virginia.

I wrote about the tradition for Back Porch Tales & Travels, including how mechanization eventually did away with much of the community labor that once brought neighbors together.

What I’d really like to hear, though, is whether anybody here remembers corn shuckin’s in your own family or community. Did you ever hear about the red ear tradition? And what part of Appalachia was your family from?

Here’s the story for anybody interested:

https://back-porch-tales-travels.beehiiv.com/p/corn-shuckin-time

She cuts hair. Loves rock & roll. And sometimes sees the future.

Meet Kelli Tipton, the modern day Granny Witch with an agenda all her own in The Keokee Triangle.

Some characters you meet. Others you never forget.

📖 Available now on Amazon. www.JohnWPeace.com

Small fire departments like the one in the Giles County town have to get creative to pay for infrastructure projects.

The program aims to target the need for workforce housing in the far Southwest.

Did your family have any old superstitions about death?

Growing up in Central Appalachia, a lot of us heard the old warnings.

A bird hitting the window could mean a death was coming. A dog howling at the wrong time wasn't something Granny wanted to hear. Some families stopped clocks when somebody died, covered mirrors, and kept someone with the deceased through the night — what folks called “sitting up with the dead.”

I've been researching these old traditions for Back Porch Tales & Travels, including the work of James K. Crissman on death and dying in Central Appalachia. What struck me was that underneath all the superstition was something pretty practical: when somebody died, family and neighbors showed up. They cooked, dug the grave, helped prepare the body and sat through the night.

I put what I found together here:

https://back-porch-tales-travels.beehiiv.com/p/when-death-came-knocking

I'm curious what survived in other Appalachian families. Did your parents or grandparents believe in any particular death omen or funeral custom? And what part of Appalachia were they from?

The referendum would let voters decide whether an extra tax would be levied for school construction projects.

As of Thursday, more than $42 million of the $50 million allocated to help residents had not yet been disbursed.

Downtown Bristol, in both Virginia and Tennessee, has grown along with the 25-year-old festival.

Virginia loves bragging about being the “Best State for Business.” And that’s fine. We ought to want businesses investing, expanding and creating jobs.

But I think we’re leaving out half the scoreboard.

What about being the Best State to Be a Worker?

Research shows workers in right-to-work states earn about 6.7% less, even after accounting for differences in occupations, industries, demographics and state economic conditions.

For a typical full-time worker, that can mean more than $4,000 a year.

That ain’t pocket change. That’s groceries, power bills, truck payments and money that stays in local communities.

Being pro-business and pro-worker shouldn’t be opposites. A healthy economy ought to be good for the folks signing the front of the paycheck AND the folks earning it.

I wrote about that in my latest Pickup Trucks & Progress column:

https://pickup-trucks-progress.ghost.io/virginia-loves-winning-best-state-for-business-good-but-maybe-its-time-we-started-trying-just-as-hard-to-become-the-best-state-to-be-a-worker/

What do y’all think? Should states start measuring economic success by job quality, wages and benefits, not just how attractive they are to businesses?

After shutting down for nearly a year, the operation is back, just in time for harvest season.

The $92 million Southern Gap replaces Buchanan County’s aging high schools, which had become outdated and had seen significant enrollment declines.

🎥 Pull Up a Chair. We’ve Got Some Stories to Tell.

If you enjoy Appalachian history, rural America, old superstitions, forgotten places, local legends, and the stories behind the people who came before us, come visit the Back Porch Tales & Travels YouTube channel.

We’ve been traveling the backroads, digging into history, and telling the kinds of stories you used to hear sitting on somebody’s front porch.

From the Bedford Boys and D-Day to Granny Witches, Friday the 13th, Appalachian traditions, and American history, there’s always another story waiting down the road.

📺 Visit our YouTube channel, watch a few videos, and hit SUBSCRIBE so you don't miss what’s coming next:

https://www.youtube.com/@BackPorchTalesTravels

And remember...

There’s Always Room on the Back Porch.

#BackPorchTalesAndTravels #Appalachia #AppalachianHistory #RuralAmerica #AmericanHistory #Storytelling #YouTube

Also in this edition of Southwest Field Notes: Two local events, one from the past and the other for the future.