Perspectives

 As I am writing this today, it has been a very interesting past week.  For one thing, I am now Dr. Thrower, as I successfully defended my dissertation and also had my dissertation manuscript accepted by the university library, which is a prerequisite of graduation.  All I wait on now is the final grade and official word that I graduated and am conferred the degree.  That is a process, but it probably will happen in the next couple of days.  After almost 50 years on and off in school - from the day I stepped into kindergarten at Stuart Hill Academy in 1974 until I graduated from Liberty University with a Ph.D. now - I am glad my formal education is finally over. It has been a journey in and of itself, and although I said it took 50 years to get there, this does not mean that I had back-to-back educational experiences.   From kindergarten until I received my B.A. in 1996, it actually was, but then it was approximately 16 years between receiving my B.A. until starting my M.A. program.  However, even in that interim, I also managed to earn a paralegal certificate.  Most of that 16-year interim however was devoted to professional development - I rose in the ranks from a security guard right after undergraduate studies to becoming a practicing paralegal, and it was perhaps one of the more stable times in my life - I was fairly stable through my 30s as I mostly worked in offices and had decent income, at one point even becoming an assistant office manager for a title company.   But, I always wanted to complete my education as a Ph.D. was my dream since even my junior year of high school. Had circumstances been different, I would have done this 20 years ago in all honesty, but life doesn't work that way unfortunately and there are rabbit trails and detours we take either by our own choices or the dictates of circumstance.  However, the important thing is I am there now, and I have good reason to celebrate that.  But, today I just wanted to share a few personal observations about the journey itself, as it had its challenges and I want to outright address them because it is integral.  Also, I want this to be an encouragement to others as well, because people will face opposition, adversity, and other challenges as they pursue what they feel they are supposed to do.  And, that is what I want to talk about.   This may get a little acerbic in some aspects, but bear with me.

Most of my accomplishments have been the work of two people - myself and God.  It seems like at every turn I had opposition to my pursuits, and very little moral support from those who should have been there for me.  It is really sad when that happens, because one's family needs to be encouraging during the process and also celebratory during the accomplishment, but my family really never was.  My mother, bless her, did try to be and I will give her credit for that in hindsight, but none of my family were at either my B.A. or M.A. commencements save my ex-wife Barbara, who was married to me still during both.  I invited my parents, and my father blew me off as not being that important while my mother thought my dad was coming and refused to go because of him.  Although both of them are now gone and I forgave that, it still does sting a bit on occasion when I think of it.  I also had a barrage of criticisms from other family - instead of celebrating my achievements for instance, all my grandfather could say was a comment about my student loans (which he had no stake in whatsoever, so he needed to shut up). Cousins and other relatives were even more critical, in that I was accused often of being a "career student" (despite the fact it took 16 years between getting my undergraduate degree and starting my Master's program, during which time I actually was working quite regularly and making decent income).  None of them were there when I did all the work, went through all the challenges, and achieved so much on my own, yet they all had opinions about it.  Of course, some of the worst attacks came from my former in-laws, and to be honest they misjudged a lot of other things too.  Despite this opposition and lack of support though, I persevered and have proven them all wrong.  This leads me to a little bit of a soapbox about family members I want to vent now, as it may also help others who have faced isolation from the very support structure that should have been encouraging them. 

In watching many of these Dhar Mann videos in the past couple of years or so, I noticed many of them focused on deadbeat parents who forsook their families when they needed them most but then all of a sudden wanted to claim the glory when their child or ex succeeds.  I watched one of those today, and the story line entailed a young lady who became successful despite her mother dying of cancer and the father abandoning her when she needed love and support the most.  The father was a deadbeat, and one day he showed up at her business and tried to sabotage his daughter.  Luckily, the daughter then was able to tell her story, and the deadbeat father was exposed as a scammer and was arrested.  That story resonated with me, as a lot of it is my story too.  Neither of my parents were overly supportive of anything I did in life - my mother was sort of apathetic about it, while my father was often outright oppositional to me.  Yet, when I did succeed, everyone wanted to take credit for my success when in reality they had nothing to do with it - as a matter of fact, in my dad's case often he was an obstacle to it.  I had the grace to forgive them, and luckily I am at peace about the whole thing now as both my parents are now gone and at the end of their lives I believe they came to terms with things and in their own way they tried to reconcile their actions, and I accept that.  However, there are still other relatives that are living that have a skewered view of things, and I will always make sure to set the record straight.  And there are other things too which got under my skin - I have one cousin whom honestly I haven't even seen since I was seven who all of a sudden decided she wanted to be an "expert" in my dissertation process.  Mind you, I don't even think this particular cousin even went to college, so what in hell does she know about writing a dissertation??  That really is a serious pet peeve I have too - if you don't know what the hell you are talking about, then just keep your mouth shut.  I have way too many relatives who like running their mouths about things they know nothing about, and to be honest, it has all the effect to me of a set of press-on fingernails scratching a chalkboard.  If you remember a few months back, I discussed what the meaning of the command "thou shalt not bear false witness" was, and in contradiction to the common view that this is talking about lying, I made the point that it was actually more about gossip and slander.  A family curse, especially on my mother's side of the family tree, is this egregious sin - my relatives on Mom's side have among them a lot of notorious gossips and BSers, and to be honest, being around them is about as appealing as a roadkill sandwich. They don't verify facts about anything, and they actually are toxic with some of the stuff they say.  I know I have been an object of that for years myself, and they really loved doing it to my mother.  The question they often asked, for instance, when talking about Mom (their blood relative, mind you!) was this - "Is she still drinking?"  Let me give some back story on this first, because it will put this idiotic question into context. 

When I was a kid, my mother did enjoy drinking a lot.  From my earliest recollections, Mom always drank, and when we lived in the town of Kirby during my late childhood years and early teens, she really became problematic with her drinking.  One reason was due to where we lived - we were in abject poverty then, and so was everyone else who lived in town.  Almost every family in town had alcoholics, and many of us who were kids then had to essentially raise ourselves.  However, over the years after leaving Kirby when I was 15 years old, Mom began to get her life together and as time passed, she actually drank less.  At the time she passed away a couple of years ago, it was a major thing if Mom even drank as many as two beers in a year.  Now, she was a notorious smoker - Mom would smoke often up to a carton of cigarettes a week, and it was a more disgusting habit than her drinking used to be in all honesty, but even other critics of her in her family smoked as much if not more (and a few of them did much worse than that even).  And, although in her younger years Mom did drink harder alcoholic products like whiskey (she loved Canadian Mist for some reason), for the last 25-30 years of her life I never saw Mom drink a drop of whiskey at all.  The family members who like to say crap about Mom all the time didn't know her as well as I did.  For the last 8 years of her life, she lived with me, and I took care of her, and I know her better than anyone.  All I can say is that I knew my mother well - she was by no means perfect, and she would be the first to admit it.  But she also was growing too, and she came a long way, and, in the end, I can say I was proud of what she had been able to do for herself.  And one thing that was a redemptive quality of hers was that in her later years she had also become a lot more supportive and encouraging of me too, and one thing I missed about her was the fact we got to talk a lot during her last few years, and those talks were actually nice. I still miss those morning talks I had with her over coffee, and those are actually fond memories for me now that I will cherish.  A parent doesn't have to be perfect to be appreciated, and as long as they try, I believe that is what matters most.  The same could be said of Dad too - a story there as well.  Dad and I were actually estranged from each other since around 2006 up until his death in 2020, but in the last few years before he passed away, we had at least begun to talk more again, and although we really didn't get along all that well, he was my dad, and I loved him.  I had also begun to forgive him of many things, and I was frankly in a good place I felt with him when he passed away.  As far as I am concerned, when a relative dies, any last issues should die with them - for me, that means automatic forgiveness.  And I forgave both of my parents as well as other relatives, who in retrospect may have been much worse.  My major contention now is with some living cousins who don't want to let the old things that cursed our family die with the older generation.  It is good to preserve the best of our forebears, but we should not enshrine their sins as virtues either.  We should be better and rise above those.  Do we still love them and can we cherish their memories?  Of course, but at least be real about it.  Any rate, I just wanted to share those observations. 

I mentioned how happy I was that Trump chose J.D. Vance as his running mate for the Presidential race, and I have personal reasons for thinking that.  J.D. Vance reflects a lot of my own experience, and I have read Hillbilly Elegy and can actually see my younger self in his reflections in many cases.  J.D., like me, grew up in a poor family with Appalachian roots, and like myself he also had an assortment of relatives who helped raise him when his own parents were less than exemplary.  And, like me, J.D. has those who would slander him, misrepresent him, and generally are toxic - the mainstream media is a prime example, as they are basically a den of snakes.  I got a bit disturbed recently when a local university noted for being a teacher's college decided to have a very partisan forum to "challenge" J.D.'s views.  I found this disgusting in all honesty, because largely the "panelists" as is usually the case were a group of rich White liberals who had questionable Appalachian backgrounds (mind you, this was in the context of an "Appalachian Studies" forum too - I have already shared my opinions of what I think so-called "Appalachian Studies" are these days, and frankly it is a fake discipline as it is represented). I have a few things to say about self-designated "experts" on the culture some of us grew up in, and I am hoping it makes them squirm a little.

Questioning a person's upbringing is the height of insulting in all honesty, and it doesn't matter if the person targeted is high-profile or not.   When I read J.D.'s memoir - and Hillbilly Elegy is just that, a memoir and not a scholarly discourse - I knew the place he was coming from, as his experience mirrored mine in many instances.  I didn't grow up exactly like J.D. obviously, as he has experiences unique to him as we all do, but the central narrative convictions of his story are from the same perspective.  If I were to make a big suggestion to universities with Appalachian Studies departments, it would be this - at least have the courses taught by people actually from the region, instead of ultra-leftists Ivy Leaguers and Berkeley hippies.  Just consider this - would a rich White liberal be teaching African-American Studies courses??  In some cases, that is unfortunately what is happening but it shouldn't either.  The idea of higher education is to be taught and mentored by individuals who are actually experts in their fields, and a Berkeley hippie cannot be an "expert" in Appalachian Studies because they don't have the Appalachian experience.  They may think that because they listened to a Loretta Lynn record or watched Songcatcher they are all of a sudden "experts," but in reality they are morons.  A bit harsh, I know, but it does fit.  Listening to Loretta Lynn does not make one more Appalachian than Roots makes a person Black.  It is time to put a stop to this BS in academia,  I want to go back to Nat Hentoff's 1965 fictional book Jazz Country to make a point with an illustration.  The antagonist of the story, a young 16-year-old White jazz fan named Tom Curtis, is invited to the house of a rich White lady who is very close friends with many Black jazz musicians.  Many of them are also there, and a bass player named Bill Hitchcock engages in a conversation with the young Tom. Tom is asking him about Veronica, the rich White jazz afficianado, about how she "broke through" (meaning how she was accepted by the jazzmen).  He thought (mistakenly) that she was a member of CORE or something, and that reasoning got a sharp rebuke from Hitchcock, who told him this: "Boy, you have a lot to learn.  She 'broke through,' as you put it, very simply.  By being herself.  It may take time, but that's the only way to make it.  In anything that counts" (Nat Hentoff, Jazz Country.  New York: Dell Publishing, 1965: 32-33).  Hitchcock's rebuke needs to be directed at a lot of these "Appalachian Studies" professors, as they are so clueless when it comes to the actual Appalachian experience that they will even attack the personal story of someone like J.D. Vance because he differs politically with them.  There is a deeper issue with these "experts" though - at least young Tom Curtis was open to learning and wanted to "break through," but many of these professors in these "Appalachian Studies" departments at universities are often so elitists that they view in contempt anyone from the region that doesn't conform to their ideal.  I am wagering that the current director of the Appalachian Studies Association has never experienced using an outhouse, probably has never eaten ramps or poke greens, or experienced the poverty and necessity for self-sufficiency many of us who grew up in the region did.  As a matter of fact, such people looked down on us as merely "subjects," and they don't give a rat's posterior about the condition and experiences of the typical West Virginian or any other native of Appalachia.  All of their nonsense is about gender studies, "climate change," and other woke garbage, and they only relate it to the region by tacking the label "Appalachian" to it.  They actually reinforce stereotypes of Appalachian people, and they don't recognize our own incommunicable attributes as human persons in God's image (many are anti-Christian as well which also makes them out of touch with even many people I grew up around).  To be honest, if I were the head of one of those universities, I would fire every Appalachian Studies department professor and then replace them with capable scholars from the region who know the land and its people.  I would love, for instance, to see J.D. Vance being the department chair at a university some day after he retires from his political career - I think he would be the best thing to happen to the field of Appalachian Studies since the late Dr. Loyal Jones, who I consider a personal mentor and was one of the finest Appalachian scholars to live.  Maybe I will write him and suggest that.  It would be good to sit down over coffee at Panera with J.D. and discuss issues like that - I think we would have a great conversation.  If God so wills, maybe someday that can happen - I am a Ph.D. now after all, so doors may open.  

I talked about a lot today, and to be honest it felt good.  Much more could be said about all this, but you get the idea.  Any rate, thank you for allowing me to share, and will see you next time.