Country Roads Take Me Home

My older brother had just won his first basketball game, I ran him his Gatorade after he was

released from talking to his coach. After the game, Matt ran up to my mom and hugged her, she praised

him for his hard work as we walked to the parking lot. As we were walking to the car we saw one of the

parents mom bent over her son attending to an injury. Between my mother’s maternal instinct and her

West Virginia upbringing, she rushed over to help. The boy was frantically crying as his mother was

inspecting his finger, she began to show my mom where his finger was red and swollen, my mother with

a concerned voice asked, “What happened? Did he stove his finger?” The boy’s mother looked up at my

mom with an irritated look in her eyes, and sarcastically came back with, “ No Ms. West Virginia, he

didn’t stove his finger, but he’s fixin’ to.” My mother felt completely shut down and deflated. She quickly

tried to corral her courage and her kids, and walk away.

Despite the hurtful encounters my mother ran into, she never denied her roots. Her roots grew far

deeper than the digs and cuts people would try to make at her. My mom did everything in her will to

ensure that she would never be consumed with the new world and new literacies she was becoming use to

in California. She became acquainted to the new lifestyle and the new language in order to maintain

stability and promote a healthy life her family. Although she developed a new discourse she would never

see her primary discourse as an inferior one. Her Appalachian English was what she had always known.

It was her native dialect. Although it separated her and emphasized that she was an outsider, it also came

with many benefits. Her dialect reminded her of her comforting and accommodating southern ways. She

wasn’t going to discard that to take up a dry and arrogant dialect just to have satisfaction in fitting in with

what was “normal”.

Every summer since my brother and I were born we took a month long trip to West Virginia.

California was my home, it was what I was accustomed to, but as we visited West Virginia every year it

became a part of me too. Approaching the airplane every summer was a bittersweet feeling, I was leaving

my friends but there was such a comfort in knowing I would be back in the “hills and hollars’, of ole’

West Virginia.”

Once we would land back East, someone was already planning a big cookout for us. What they

considered a cookout wasn’t just a bbq on Fourth of July, or a special occasion, a cookout was a huge

family gathering on the back porch of my Uncle’s Property, that never excluded anyone. The cookout

was too big and took too much effort to not allow anyone and everyone. Although the cookout was grand

in food, size, and fun, no one was expected to get gussied up. People would come from up yander (the

road) and wander up bringing a dish of food, but usually not bringing anything but themselves and their

hungry family. Usually one or more of the dishes showcased Papaw’s homegrown maters’ or rams’.

My mom would be gleaming with excitement and relief, she was finally home. Everyone would

gather up around the picnic tables as we said grace. We’d quickly delve into the mouth -watering

smorgasbord of food. My uncle said to me, “Honey, can you pass the roastinears’ and the fried green

maters’?” I had become so comfortable with this way of talking I knew right away that he needed the

corn and the green tomatoes. I already anticipated him asking me to go get the pitcher of sweet tea from

the fridge. I was quickly pulled away from the table. One of my baby cousins needed to get “warshed off

from gettin’ too dirty in the crick. ”

After super, my brother grabbed his six string or his guitar, and started pickin’ with my uncles.

My grandma watched how comfortable my brother was being back home in West Virginia, picking up

his guitar with his family, and even with people he didn’t know well. She looked over to my mom and

said, “Bless his heart, I reckon that Matthew is a good ole’ West Virginia boy, ain’t he?” My mom

shrugged and proudly smirked at her and nodded. My mom looked at me and said, “Katie, go sing along

with them,” I was hesitant, but went on because I wanted my mamaw’ to think I was relaxed and in my

environment too. My grandma heard me carry a tune and said, “Well by golly, I can’t carry a tune in a

bucket. Where in Heavens did she get her voice from?” My mom leaned back in her rocking chair and

laughed.

Moments and memories that I recall from my summers back home are so vivid to me. As I

reminisce on them and compare them to what I hear and the literacies I’ve adjusted to in my everyday

life, it is evident how different they are. As my secondary discourse in West Virginia becomes more

prominent to me, so does my compassion. The stereotyping and judgement their language undergoes has

become more noticeable to me as I grow up and mature. I try to picture my friends in California, and the

reaction they would have witnessing the discourse that I am use to in West Virginia. If they sat with me at

the dinner table with my family back home, what facial expressions would they make if they heard my

uncle say, “I don’t want no piddlin’ of mashed taters,” Would they judge him? Would they judge me? If

I hadn’t visited West Virginia since I was little, and only visited every few years, would I be judgmental

to the ways they communicate too? Even if I was unfamiliar with their language, would I still be able to

sense the warmth and neighborly feeling they radiate despite their “broken” English?

When focusing on discourse communities and different literacies, I’ve realized how versatile the

word discourse is. It applies to many different Englishes and literacies. We tend to judge the ways people

communicate when we can’t relate or understand. When we become comfortable and in tuned with a

discourse whether it’s primary or secondary, we let our guard down and it becomes a lifestyle. Our

discourse communities separate us and keep us from being too much alike. A discourse community does

not generalize it specializes, it’s up to us to keep malleable minds, and be welcoming to many different

types discourse whether were familiar or not.