Bland
County History Archives
The Ordinary and Anything But: Tales from Appalachia
Rocky Gap High School, Rocky Gap, Virginia
Maintained by students at Rocky Gap High School, the Bland County History Archives contain 80 cemetery catalogs, 320 interviews, 700 scanned photographs, plus maps and other artifacts. The Archives began in 1993 as an optional project in junior-year American history classes, with the goal of preserving the unique stories of the area’s Appalachian residents. Several years later, educators saw an opportunity to integrate computer technology with the history curriculum in a meaningful way; the Local History and Technology class was initiated specifically to manage and organize the Archive website. American history students continue to generate the on-line content (oral histories, photos, cemetery catalogs), which grows steadily. The Archives won Best School Resource Site in Virginia for 1996 from the Virginia Society for Technology in Education. Visit the award-winning website at: www.bland.k12.va.us/bland/rocky/gap.html
Walking
in the Dark:
Jim Lundy Reflects on What the Mountain Knows
by Nate Lundy
Jim: I guess it was around the year 1975, about twenty years ago. I saw something that made me wonder about our world.
was raised in these mountains. [My] childhood, really my home, was the
woods and the hollows, running up and down Round Mountain and Brushy Mountain
and what they call the old Indian hunting grounds, in Hunting Camp Creek.
I sometimes think that growing up like this makes a person different,
in ways of thought, in what one thinks is wisdom, and what is not.
I think we may have lost a lot when we thought we were gaining, and it’s
disturbing to think, “What if I am right?”
Let me give you an example: for many years I ran the mountains hunting for wild ginseng. Then I got to where I could sense its presence nearby without even knowing it was there. The secret was I really wasn’t thinking about it. It’s just like, it came to me that it was in the next hollow, and I’d walk in the next hollow and it would be there. And it was like it didn’t surprise me any, that it was there, you understand? It’s like the game we sometimes play, picking the aces out of four or even five different cards. If you think about it, you will never get the right card, but if you’ll just let your hand pick up the card, it seems like your hand knows which card is the right one.
We let machines do our thinking now, and we think we’re advanced, but are we really? Are we losing more knowledge than we can ever hope to regain? You know, it’s interesting. In the Bible it says that with just a little faith, you can move a mountain. Could there be more there in anything than we could ever dream?
You know, they say we only use a small fraction of our brain, and are we trying every day to use less. What I’m trying to say is maybe your mind has to be tuned to accept knowledge, like you program a computer for it to work. You may not be able to see things if your mind is a blank screen.
That night, alone in the mountains—and I love to be alone in the
mountains. Sometimes, many times, I’d walk without the aid of a flashlight,
but that all started mainly because back then I could not afford a good
light. Then when I had a good light, I turned it off. You understand what
I’m saying? It’s like I discovered something that’s hard
to put into words. Anyway, I was walking back through the woods from a
long hunting night.
Nate: What were you hunting?
Jim: Raccoons. And I had two hounds, two good dogs, and I don’t think we caught any thing that night, and it really didn’t matter—it was just getting out in the mountains. It was thinking time, an escape. All of the sudden, the surrounding area was lit up by a dim blue light with a glow like, and I looked up and saw what I thought was a small moon. It was just at the crest of the mountain, like it had just risen from the hidden valley. It was what we called Cove Creek, and there were no roads or anything leading to it. I looked up at what appeared to be a round sphere, and then slowly, it went back down behind the ridge--like it didn’t want me to see it, or made a mistake. I got the impression it was waiting for me to leave. I just smiled to myself and went on home. Years went by before I would even speak about things like that. But somehow I feel like I know something that I don’t know I know, if you can understand that.
Being alone in thought brings wisdom—not because you wish it so but because your mind is open to receive, or tuning in on the right channel to pick up something.
I never saw the light again. I never looked for it. Many other things
I’ve seen, but some are not to be talked about. I seem to have an
inner thought that all is well, and all will be well in the end.
