The two finest writers to come out of Cambria County, Pennsylvania (Well, wait..."The two finest"? "Two".) are Malcolm Cowley (Blue Juniata) and Jennifer Haigh (Mrs. Kimble). Cowley, however, was only born in Belsano, he grew up in Pittsburgh. Haigh, on the other hand, was born in the town-formerly-known-as-Barnesboro and grew up in Cambria County. Both had the good sense to move on. I have read only The Portable Hemingway by Cowley and nothing by Haigh.
Today on NPR I heard, a continuation, I gather, of the network's listening-to of Trump voters. You know, that's the thing to do now if you're a befuddled East or Left Coaster. "You can walk from Florida to Idaho without ever alighting on a blue county," informed one guest. We have to walk in his foot steps, so to speak.
Malcolm Cowley could not be reached for comment on accounta he died in 1989. Jennifer Haigh however could be, and was. "Coal country," so characterized by NPR, is "like family," so characterized by (and to) Ms. Haigh: "loved," "delightful," "infuriating," "heart-breaking." (I bat one out of four there.) What frosts Ms. Haigh's balls ("takes issue with," is her term) is the anger toward the Beloved Infuriating and their ilk, my word, for their votes for an ignorant, racist, misogynistic, tool-of-Russia, Strongman. You can see why. We need "empathy" for her unempathetic family, prescribed Ms. Haigh. We need to listen to them.
No.
Like Mr. Cowley I spent time living in Pittsburgh. Like Ms. Haigh, I was born in Barnesboro (Unless the area birthed a second hospital between 1955 and 1968, I believe that biographical detail on Ms. Haigh's origin is incorrect. She was born, as I was, in Miner's Hospital in neighboring Spangler.) and grew up in Barnesboro. I also spent four additional years in Western Pennsylvania in college in Pittsburgh, while Ms. Haigh went to elite Dickinson College in central Pa. She followed up Dickinson with the elite Iowa Writers' Workshop, I followed (only in the sense of "came after") Song Binbin to elite MIT before returning to my roots in the Commonwealth of Ilk at the Temple of Themis in Philadelphia. Then, I was gone for good.
All of which is to say that I have spent at least as much time in Cambria County listening to our (Ms. Haigh's and my) Family of Ilk as has she. Each of us has been blessed to listen to them all of our fucking lives, and I ain't listenin' to 'em no mo!
Today on NPR I heard, a continuation, I gather, of the network's listening-to of Trump voters. You know, that's the thing to do now if you're a befuddled East or Left Coaster. "You can walk from Florida to Idaho without ever alighting on a blue county," informed one guest. We have to walk in his foot steps, so to speak.
Malcolm Cowley could not be reached for comment on accounta he died in 1989. Jennifer Haigh however could be, and was. "Coal country," so characterized by NPR, is "like family," so characterized by (and to) Ms. Haigh: "loved," "delightful," "infuriating," "heart-breaking." (I bat one out of four there.) What frosts Ms. Haigh's balls ("takes issue with," is her term) is the anger toward the Beloved Infuriating and their ilk, my word, for their votes for an ignorant, racist, misogynistic, tool-of-Russia, Strongman. You can see why. We need "empathy" for her unempathetic family, prescribed Ms. Haigh. We need to listen to them.
No.
Like Mr. Cowley I spent time living in Pittsburgh. Like Ms. Haigh, I was born in Barnesboro (Unless the area birthed a second hospital between 1955 and 1968, I believe that biographical detail on Ms. Haigh's origin is incorrect. She was born, as I was, in Miner's Hospital in neighboring Spangler.) and grew up in Barnesboro. I also spent four additional years in Western Pennsylvania in college in Pittsburgh, while Ms. Haigh went to elite Dickinson College in central Pa. She followed up Dickinson with the elite Iowa Writers' Workshop, I followed (only in the sense of "came after") Song Binbin to elite MIT before returning to my roots in the Commonwealth of Ilk at the Temple of Themis in Philadelphia. Then, I was gone for good.
All of which is to say that I have spent at least as much time in Cambria County listening to our (Ms. Haigh's and my) Family of Ilk as has she. Each of us has been blessed to listen to them all of our fucking lives, and I ain't listenin' to 'em no mo!
They are ignorant, racist, misogynistic, tools of the Russian tool and I have disowned my remaining family so that I never have to listen to them again. They need empathy of the ilk Woody Allen prescribed for Nazis: baseball bats.
*It's still "No" but I have made changes to this today, December 23, after checking the NPR transcript. Not worth an "Update," just an *.
*It's still "No" but I have made changes to this today, December 23, after checking the NPR transcript. Not worth an "Update," just an *.
