Sarah Loudin Thomas's Blog

I’m so delighted to see Appalachian historical fiction having a moment in this year’s Selah Awards. Plus, Cindy Sproles and Ann Gabhart are wonderful friends and encouragers! Celebrating together. Appalachian-style.

 

CBS Sunday Morning just reran this piece from last December. If you’ve read The Finder of Forgotten Things, you’ll recognize the mention of silicosis. It’s now cropping up as a complicating factor in today’s young miners with black lung.Sometimes history repeats itself.

Typically, I find myself doing writerly events close to the release of a new novel. But I actually have quite a few events staggered between now and the release of These Tangled Threads on April 2. Check ’em out and come see me!

October 13, 2023 – Past Time Historical Fiction Book Club – 10-11 a.m. Join me at the Caldwell County Library in Lenoir for a discussion of The Right Kind of Fool. I LOVE libraries–don’t you??

October 26, 2023 – Library Journal Day of Dialog panel. This will be a virtual event primarily for librarians but what book lover wouldn’t want to attend?

January 28 – February 3, 2024 – The Path to Publication – I’m so excited to be presenting a week-long workshop at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC. With its rich Appalachian heritage, this is a place that fits me to a T!

February 23-25, 2024 – Asheville Christian Writers Conference at the Billy Graham Training Center in Asheville, NC. If you’ve been wanting to attend a writing conference this is a great place to start!

April 3-5, 2024 – Public Library Assoc. Conference – I’ll be in Columbus, OH, for the launch of These Tangled Threads at a LIBRARY CONFERENCE!! Talk about perfect timing. Plus, I’ll get to travel through WV on my way there and back. More details to come.

My favorite country road.

West Virginia has FOUR state songs. If that seems like a lot, Tennessee has something like a dozen. I’ve always sung “The West Virginia Hills,” when entering my home state. It’s been an official state song since 1963.

But the song most people think of as our state song is John Denver’s “Take Me Home Country Roads.” And in 2014, the state legislature made that official. So what is it about a song written by a guy born in Roswell, New Mexico, that captures the Mountain State so perfectly?

Well, first, let’s get the problems out of the way. “Almost heaven, West Virginia. Blue Ridge Mountains. Shenandoah River.” Well. Technically, those mountains and that river are just across the border in Virginia. But what the heck, people have been confusing us with western Virginia since 1863.

Next we have the “mountain mama” and “moonshine” lyrics. Pretty stereotypical but not wrong.

Now let’s hit the bits that make this song one that causes Mountaineers to throw their arms around one another’s shoulders and sing at the top of their lungs. “All my memories gathered ’round her, Miner’s lady stranger to blue water.” Yup, yup, yup. West Virginians love taking a walk down memory lane and pretty much everyone will eventually come to a family member who went down in the mines. Oh, and Myrtle Beach is the official vacation destination of the state for a reason.

But here’s where John Denver absolutely nailed it.

“I hear her voice, in the mornin’ hour she calls me,
Radio reminds me of my home far away.
And driving down the road I get a feeling
I should have been home yesterday, yesterday.”

It’s kind of uncanny how West Virginians living outside the state will find one another. And once they do, they’re friends for life because being together is a little taste of home. I know lots of people are patriotic when it comes to their birthplace, but I really do think those of us from WV are a bit more passionate about it. And it’s because of what Denver captured so perfectly. We’re homesick. Most of us don’t feel quite right until we’re back on home ground. West Virginia really does call to us to let those country roads take us home . . . where we belong.

 

I attempt a small garden most years. And by “garden” I mean that I tuck fruit and vegetable plants in the flower beds. Or I grow them in pots on the porch.

At our last house I quickly learned not to grow anything a rabbit might like unless I just wanted to feed the rabbits. Now I’m learning which plants neither rabbits nor deer enjoy. Which is almighty limiting!

Still, this past spring I planted asparagus, onions, and fingerling potatoes. The onions, which I was surest of, didn’t do much at all. I suspect it’s the heavy clay soil I’m fighting. The six hills of potatoes have produced nicely. We’re not storing up for winter, but I got my money’s worth. The asparagus has grown like CRAZY. Of course, you’re not supposed to harvest until the third year but if they overwinter well, I might risk cutting one dinner’s worth next spring.

And then there are the tomatoes and squash.

But wait, you say, you didn’t mention planting tomatoes and squash. That’s because I didn’t. Last year I learned that our local deer have a taste for the cherry tomatoes and crookneck squash I planted. So imagine my delight when volunteer tomato and squash plants came up! I transplanted some of the tomatoes to a pot so I could hide them from the deer and just hoped for the best with the squash.

The deer definitely browsed the vines but even so I finally saw some fruit forming. And . . . hello. It wasn’t crookneck. I have butternut squash coming along nicely. What?!? It’s even in the SAME SPOT as last year’s crookneck. Also, some of the tomato plants, which I assumed were from last year’s red cherry plants, are . . . orange tomatoes.

All I can figure is that the deer who rob my garden also, ahem, deposit seeds from other people’s gardens.

Ain’t that a wonder??

As the director of Jan Karon’s Mitford Museum, I have the pleasure of putting on our annual fall literary weekend–GetLit! This year we’re featuring Patti Callahan Henry, Mark Powell, Jan Karon, and MOI! Okay, so maybe I’m presenting because, well, I’m here anyway. But it’s still such fun!

Here’s hoping you’ll join us the last weekend in September for readings, workshops, food, and more! Click here for all the details.

If you saw the photo of my second-grade class last week, I challenged you to point out which one was me. The folks who know me best were pretty quick to spot my SMILE. I’ve always been a big smiler. I joke that smiling is my spiritual gifting.

     

Hmmm. Maybe NOT a joke!
Although it’s nice to see my smile was EXTRA big on my wedding day.

I ADORED school. Well, I ADORED elementary school. Middle school, not so much.

Here we are, second grade circa 1978. (In case the clothes didn’t tip you off.) Anyone want to guess which one is me??

Mrs. Lashley was our teacher. I’ve since reconnected with her, and she’s read (and critiqued!!) my books. Why is it that meeting your second grade teacher as an adult is kind of like meeting your favorite celebrity? Or maybe that’s just me.

This is the year I first learned some sign language and we signed Do You Hear What I Hear for the Christmas pageant. I still can’t hear that song without wanting to do the sign for “shepherd boy.” (I just signed it.) I also won a coloring contest this year. The prize was an inflatable beach ball which our dog, Fred, bit. I was pretty upset at the time. Now I’d take Fred over that ball any day.

When I was in high school and college, I was an avid letter writer. I had legit pen pals abroad as well as letters flying up and down the east coast to my cousin, quite a few young men, girlfriends, and even an Irish musician I saw perform on Mountain Stage one weekend in West Virginia.

Recently I was going through my cedar chest (thanks Mom!) and found stacks of the letters I received in response. What a walk down memory lane! A highlight among them were three cards from Luka Bloom–that musical Irishman. And I wondered . . . where is he now? Turns out he’s still in Ireland and still performing. So I took a photo of his notes and shot it out into the ether via email with thanks for encouraging a young writer once upon a time . . .

Here’s a snippet from his answer:

Dear Sarah, A ‘cedar chest’…..Now that is high class hoarding!!! Well done. And how cool that you uncovered my greeting cards. Seeing them evokes very fond memories of a different age; when people bought cards, wrote on them, stamped them and posted them. I still do… I see that the stamp says Raleigh. I would have been on tour, in 1990. Living in Greenwich Village. Always carried cards, to post home, or to wherever…….Even French Creek!! I really appreciate your email; everything about it has lifted me. Thank you, and blessings to you and yours in beautiful West Virginia, Luka  What fun is that?? Makes me want to pull out some nice stationary and write someone a letter . . .And hopefully it makes you want to check out LUKA BLOOM. His music now officially makes me homesick for being 18 years old with a sheet of paper, a pen, and great big dreams.

Laurel Fork when the water’s high.

It’s hot.

Oh, I know, it’s a lot hotter other places, but when you opt to live in the Appalachian Mountains it isn’t because you love toasty summers. We’ve been in the 90s every day for too long now. At least it cools down at night!

The heat has me reminiscing about hot summer days from childhood and all the ways we found to keep cool in those pre-air-conditioning days. Here are the top ten ways I remember keeping cool:

Aunt Bess’ swimming hole. Icy cold water rushing over smooth shelves of stone was absolute heaven. There was a big rock to jump off of and another to sit on in the sun before slipping back into that welcoming water.Mason jars of ice water. The best plan was to not work out in that beating down sun, but when it was time to put up hay, there was little choice. I remember carrying many a sloshing jar clinking with ice to the men in the field. Water beaded on the outside of the jar and somehow water tasted better with chaff in your hair and the sun on your back.Grandma’s fan. There was often a fan whirring near Grandma’s back door, blowing air into the overheated kitchen. We would crouch in front of the fan and speak into it to hear how the blades distorted our voices.Rock hopping. Behind Grandma’s house we could wade in Laurel Fork, hopping from rock to rock along the creek. Water is nature’s air conditioning and it was always cooler under the canopy of trees where water chattered all around us.The bed of a pick-up truck. I know, I know, it’s not safe to stand with your feet planted firmly on the metal bed, hands on the cab of the truck, and face full in the wind. But it was surely cooler there.Flat on your back under a maple tree. The tree offered shade, the sky offered a breeze, and there were clouds to watch as they changed shape and rolled on into tomorrow.Playing in the rain. Give us a nice downpour with water to be collected from the drainpipes and nothing on but our underwear and we were practically shivering with the cool.The cellar. Bins of potatoes gave it an earthy smell while rows of canned produce gleamed in the light from the open door. And it was cool, cool, cool down there.Eating homemade ice cream. It was hard work to make, but we were distracted by tasting the salt water as it dripped from the drain spout. And forget curing the end product, we just pulled the paddle out and dug in. Cool all the way down.A hammock under a towering pine. Something about being suspended in air by a giant spiderweb is automatically cooler. And if you swing, there’s surely a breeze.

What’s your favorite way to keep cool these days?