Reflections on Hillbilly Elegy

I recently finished reading Vice President J.D. Vance’s book, Hillbilly Elegy. Mr. Vance’s book was published in 2016 well before he was elected to the U.S. Senate from Ohio in 2022. My wife and I saw the movie by the same title about a year ago right before Mr. Vance was selected by President Donald Trump as Mr. Trump’s Vice-Presidential running mate. The book is a great read regardless of your politics. Mr. Vance’s maternal Mamaw and Papaw and the U.S. Marines come out great in the book. Republican and Democrat politicians not so much! The Netflix movie is worth your time but make sure any young children or grandchildren have gone to bed as Mr. Vance’s Mamaw’s language in the movie is a bit coarse! My refined New York wife was mildly skeptical about the accuracy of the family drama portrayed in the movie, but I had no doubts for the movie, or the book based on my own Kentucky family history and my own work experience in Mr. Vance’s family home in Jackson, Breathitt County, Kentucky. I will happily explain both connections below.

1.        Work. As I shared in my book, Almost Finished, I worked for the Bell Telephone System while I attended law school at night. One of my first solo assignments was to travel about 3 hours from Louisville to Jackson, Breathitt County, Kentucky in the Fall of 1979 to acquire land for a new telephone exchange office. Back in the day of landline telephones, the exchange office housed the equipment needed to operate the electronics for the business and residential landline phones in the community. Anytime a new office was to be constructed, it was important for economic reasons to have it as close to the existing exchange office as possible. I was surely a bit overconfident that this undertaking in Jackson would be easy for an aspiring lawyer like me. When I arrived in Jackson, I found what I thought would be an excellent location. I had a brief discussion with the owner about price, and it was clear to me that a deal was possible. We both agreed to meet again later in the afternoon. But before that could happen, I was flagged down by the Mayor of Jackson. It seems that news of my negotiation with the other landowner had reached the mayor. Not all that surprising that a Bell Telephone car circling the downtown would attract attention in a small town. As it turned out, the mayor had good news and bad news for me. The bad news was that it would be “very difficult” for Bell Telephone to secure a building permit to construct a new exchange office on the first piece of property if that was acquired. But the good news was that the mayor had a “much better piece of property” he would sell Bell Telephone and there would be no concerns about building permits or any other required local approvals if his property was purchased! Bell Telephone could count on him to deliver! Somehow, I thought this was an offer that Bell Telephone needed to refuse!  I thanked the mayor for his interest and got back in the car and headed back to Louisville with any hubris left in downtown Jackson! A few weeks later and a bit wiser about the local atmospherics, I headed back to Jackson, but this time with my boss who had quite a bit more gravitas than I did for dealing with the locals in Jackson. Fortunately, we were able to sign an arms-length, no strings attached deal for property owned by the Breathitt County Judge-Executive. The Judge-Executive was very friendly and entertaining and assured us that, while he never took a drink on the job, this did not mean that he did not have a case of beer iced down in his truck at 4:00 PM on hot Friday afternoons in the Summer!

2.        Family. Mr. Vance’s nuclear and extended family members were ravaged by alcohol and drug abuse and his mother was a drug addict with as many drug relapses as she had failed intimate relationships with men. His mother’s drug abuse sidelined her from gainful employment for extended periods of time which resulted in financial hardship for the family and her absence from any constructive parenting role for Mr. Vance and his half-sister.

It would be most inaccurate for me to say that my family background is the same as Mr. Vance’s. It surely was not, but there were indeed similarities. My father was born and raised in Crab Orchard, Lincoln County, Kentucky as part of a family of 5 siblings. He shared just as a matter of fact that, as a young boy, the only time he ever wore a pair of shoes during the Summer was when he went to Church on Sunday! To be sure, my father’s family were of modest financial means, but his family was not impoverished and did not experience the deleterious effect of substance abuse and gambling. My mother was born and spent her early years in Lilly, Laurel County, Kentucky before moving to Covington in northern Kentucky in her early teen years. Tragically, my mother’s growing up experience had many sad similarities to Mr. Vance’s. My mother’s father was a hard-fisted conductor on the L&N railroad. He worked very hard on what was a challenging and at times dangerous job. When he wasn’t working, he was drinking alcohol and gambling hard at one of his favorite local saloons. There was something about this type of work and the culture of southeastern Kentucky which made my grandfather’s experience more common than anyone might imagine. He died relatively young in his sleep at 62 years of age at a Corbin, KY YMCA while on an overnight work assignment. While my mother’s family could have lived comfortably on her father’s L&N salary, they were impoverished because of his self-destructive lifestyle. My mother and grandmother would regularly rush to the local grocery story to pay off the “monthly grocery tab” as soon as my grandfather was paid and before he could get to the local saloon to drink and gamble away his paycheck. The next time you see a great photo op with Kentucky’s governor placing the first Sport’s Bet in Kentucky with some Republican legislators close by, just remember that there will not be a photo op for some wife and mother in Jackson, Kentucky and Middletown, Ohio who are praying earnestly that the checks for the family’s mortgage and utility payments will not bounce because of their husband’s gambling activities draining the family checking account.

3.        Mentors and Protectors. Mr. Vance seems to have largely escaped the long-term impact of his mother’s addiction and other extended family member’s dysfunction because of the hedge of protection placed around him by his Mamaw and Papaw. Fortunately, they protected him from the worst of his mother’s physical and mental abuse during her disabling drug and alcohol episodes. They also believed in him and encouraged him to do his best in school. They also taught him the value of work for generating income and self-worth.  All of this ultimately gave him opportunities for intellectual and emotional growth and prepared him for service in the U.S. Marines and then college and law school. Although he did not state it directly, I believe Mr. Vance understands that God used his Mamaw and Papaw, his military service, and trusted mentors in college and law school to rescue him from what could have been a life of alcohol and drug abuse which gravely harmed many of his extended family and friends in Appalachia.

I can say with no fear of contradiction that my professional life would have turned out vastly different and for the worse if I had not had mentors around me who cared about me and invested in me and guided my career direction toward success. I have no doubt that God placed all of these individuals in my life for this purpose.

Unfortunately, my mother did not have a Mamaw and Papaw around to protect her and no mentors to encourage and help her in her school and work. In middle school and high school, she faced a regular dose of ridicule and shame from her classmates because of her shabby and inferior clothing.  She also experienced the local grocer’s anger when the family grocery tab was far in arrears. As a young woman with her first full-time secretarial job, it was up to her to pay her mother’s hospital and doctor bills. She also paid for her younger sister’s clothes and school related expenses. In my mother’s case, her membership in a strong local church and fellowship with other Believers to some extent mitigated the emotional damage wrought by her father’s destructive lifestyle. But my mother’s sense of family shame and inferiority remained a constant companion for her entire adult life even though her economic circumstances had changed much for the better in marriage to my father.

4.        Conclusion. While Mr. Vance largely escaped the impact of the worst of what Appalachia has to offer this is surely not the case for most. It was surely not the case for my mother. What should be shared today, and every day is what Scripture has to say about the challenges faced by those living in Appalachia and for that matter anywhere else in this challenging time. One of my favorite Scriptures is Galatians 6:2 in which the Apostle Paul admonishes to “Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ”. When we live in this way, we can be effective mentors and offer encouragement and assistance to those in our sphere of influence. The recipients of our encouragement and assistance will benefit greatly as well as those of us offering the encouragement and assistance.

God bless you and thank you for the privilege of your time in reading my blog.