Learning life lessons in Appalachia [View all]

Interesting article... would like to have read much more.

http://www.gadsdentimes.com/article/20140504/NEWS/140509975?p=1&tc=pg
The Gadsden Times
Published: Sunday, May 4, 2014 at 6:01 a.m.
Learning life lessons in Appalachia
By Jimmy Smothers
Times Sports Editor Emeritus

One day Marilyn Sue Marshall was walking down the hall at a rural school where she taught speech-language pathology to children in the Appalachian Mountains. One of the students stopped her and asked, “Are you from New York City?”

That was a dozen plus eight years ago, and the only thing Miss Marshall remembers about him is that he seemed different from the other young boys.

“He seemed more educated, like he would not end up in that backwoods area of the mountain,” the teacher remembered. “He wasn’t in any of my classes and I really think he said that to me because I had a mouthful of teeth, a big hairdo and wore bright red lipstick.

“Everywhere I went in that little community and on that part of the mountain, people would ask who I was and where I was from,” she said. “Even the cashier at the gas station asked me when I first arrived if I was that lady from TV doing a story on someone. When I’d go down to the foot of the mountain people would say, ‘Y’all must be th’ new speech teacher; where y’all from?’ I must have looked as foreign as I sounded to them.... MORE