The Forgotten Generation of People Located in Appalachia of North America

Not so long ago, the Tennessee Valley Authority, also known as the TVA brought life to what was a dying region of the United States. Appalachia was already behind the rest of our nation in commerce, housing, education, employment. Today, the Appalachia that I know and love, still suffers the same aliments that it suffered prior to the TVA and some additional hardships that the remainder of Americans will never endure. The hope is that a rescue is on the way to deliver an entire region from the desperation that they live each day. Hopefully, they can begin to move forward with the rest of our nation too.

A number of years ago, I grew up as a poor child and one of the first attendees of the local Headstart Program. It was all the talk around the store that you could send your kids and they could go to school and while there they would get a snack and nap. For me, that was a luxury and I never wanted to go home, because at home there were no snacks, the work was hard, I was six and lived in deep southwestern Virginia in the 60's. My parents were factory workers for the most part with off and on seasonal tobacco farming or orchard work. When we had tobacco or orchard money, times were good, but that never coincided with school or winter, therefore, those times were lean.

During my formative years, I reared my brother and two sisters, as I was the oldest and both my parents worked always hoping for better. That better never came because the area of the country never changed. I grew up in a very economically depressed area, which still remains the same today and in some ways much worse as all the factories that once gave commerce and jobs to the region, have long since left. All their workers forever displaced and out of work, many retired early, seeking social security benefits way before their time, others if ambitious enough went back to school or finished school to obtain new work in other towns not so nearby.

The face of my home is still the same forty years later and there is no indication that it will change any time soon. All of the farming that once thrived in southwestern Virginia is gone along with the produce workers and their families. The remaining citizens are the "hold outs" on long owned family land and they most likely will die a peaceful death at home. There are no jobs in this region anymore and for work, one must leave just as I did in the late 70's. Upon my high school graduation and against family wishes, I went off to a college for an education as I knew that to be the only way to escape the cycle of poverty that I'd survived. I vowed that once I turned eighteen, that I would be different and make a difference somehow. That move paid off. I've been fortunate to have served the nation in the military and in the federal government where I still work full time. As for leaving Appalachia, I did what all people who cannot find work there must do to support themselves or family, I left. I left my home. I had to leave my home and I had no choice in the matter. That move cost me friendships and a family hardship. What I did earned me the reputation of being "uppity". I had stepped outside of my upbringing and through it all, it gave me a work ethic that won't be found elsewhere in America. My hope is that this article gets great exposure and brings a new type of commerce back to the region where I grew up and call home. There is only one home and when I go back, it will be to bring hope, change, and life back to southwestern Virginia.