To most
folks from Letcher County, the C.B. Caudill Store was the place to go
to get some gas, groceries, pipe fitting or other supplies. Included
in any transaction was the chance to talk about the weather, family,
friends or anything else in the Blackey breeze with storekeepers Gaynell
- C.B.'s daughter - and Joe Begley.
To most
folks not from Letcher County - touring college students, reporters,
federal poverty warriors, foundation funders and community activists
- the C.B. Caudill Store was the front - porch stage for Joe Begley
to rail against strip mining, oil and gas exploitation or any of the
other causes for which tall Joe stood. Gaynell would generally sit on
the swinging chair or hold the fort behind the counter, full of her
own wisdom but content to defer to Joe's determined outspokenness.
Some people
- I'm lucky enough to be one of them - could live in both worlds, able
to know Joe Begley as the photogenic, outspoken, looks - like - Lincoln
advocate as well as the Blackey guardian and storekeeper who, with Gaynell,
was daily proof of all that is so rare and so right about eastern Kentucky.
More than
30 years ago, I was one of those outsiders drawn to Letcher County because
of its problems, which were as clear and visible as a strip mine bench
or a black lung scarred miner or a school without books. Joe and Gaynell
willingly - sometimes wearily - explained such problems to visitors,
but they would do so only in the context of local positives. It's too
bad so many visitors missed those positive things, which were as apparent
as the store's long porch and the genuine bonds of friendship, family
and community that quietly played out there every day.
To Joe
Begley, and to Gaynell, that sense of community and place was the fuel
that drove the outrage.
When I
first met Joe, I was a Yankee newcomer, fotched - on, as it were, come
to write for the Mountain Eagle. But during that first visit, Joe decided
not to switch into his interview mode, enthralling reporters with perfect
quotes, perfectly delivered with a fine mix of details and anecdote.
No, on
that first real encounter 30 years ago, Joe said hello and then suggested,
well, sort of commanded, that I just get in the red jeep with him. He
had a Saturday square dance in Carcassonne to get to.
Rather
than a tour of strip mines or pipelines, my first jeep ride with Joe
was a nighttime drive past Elk Creek and Bull Creek and up the steep,
dirt road to Carcassonne which I would eventually grow to enjoy but
which at the time seemed little more than one endlessly long blind curve.
Joe looked at the road occasionally, but mostly pointed out who lived
where, adding color and commentary, at least some of which turned out
to be true. At Carcassonne, he made a point of introducing me to Dixons
and Caudills and Fugates and others, many of who I still count as friends.
Then he was off to the dance floor, happily cajoling and organizing
circles within circles.
And that
was the point: Joe Begley certainly enjoyed the national soapbox role
and the cameras and notebooks, but not for his own notoriety. Joe saw
himself as the point man for a cause, and the cause was a culture and
community he felt was under corporate, governmental and economic assault.
I lived
in the little house behind the store. Joe would of course keep me duly
informed of newsworthy developments, but I also remember his boots thudding
on the porch early one morning so that he could drag me outside to point
out a hawk he had just spotted soaring over the river. To Joe, it was
just as important for Mountain Eagle readers to know that a hawk had
returned to Letcher County as it was for them to know that yet another
delegation was visiting from Washington.
As an
Eagle reporter, living in the little house kept me literally in the
middle of many of the news stories of the day, from meetings of the
Citizens League to Protect Surface Rights, organized by Joe, to more
local stories, such as the fire that destroyed Blackey's school. That
blaze also burned up the little bit of community fabric that held together
Blackey as a viable town. Until the library was built -- and more recently
the water and sewer line -- about the only glue left was the C.B. Caudill
Store. Joe and Gaynell Begley became not just keepers of a country store,
but keepers of a community.
As much
a wooden-plank wire service for strip mining and other coalfield developments,
the store and its porch became my own center. Driving back just before
dawn after delivering the Eagle from the printer, I would see the store
just after that last broad curve before Blackey bridge. Sometimes Pascal
Dixon was already sitting there in the winter darkness, waiting for
his ride to work. We'd talk a little, soon to be joined by Joe or Gaynell
as they began their own day. "Be good, buddy," Joe would say as I headed
off to Whitesburg, or wherever.
I later
moved to Ice, where my new neighbors were Clarence and Sara Ison, who
still writes a regular community column for the Eagle. Last year, after
visiting Joe in the hospital, I drove Gaynell to visit with Sara and
Clarence. I just sat back and listened - as they talked about old times
and good ways of life.
For me,
this wasn't just nostalgia or some kind of quaint exercise in oral history
to observe. This was the kind of connection, the kind of values and
positive tradition which make folks like Sara and Clarence so special
and which were the core of what drove Joe and Gaynell Begley to stay
and persevere.
Countless
mountain people, many of whom don't know it, owe a special thanks to
Joe Begley for making it possible for them to stop worrying that a bulldozer
might suddenly strip the hill above them.
But I'm
grateful for something else. I'm glad that Joe chose not to launch into
an eloquent and quotable tirade against strip mining that night I met
him three decades ago. Being chauffeured by Joe Begley in his red Jeep
made me understand what really made this fine man tick. And it made
me appreciate once and forever why eastern Kentucky matters.
"Be good,
buddy."