Country Boy
The following aired as a WVTF radio essay on June 15th.
“Mom, what do you want to be when you grow up?” My son Josh asked me once when he was a little boy.
I smiled and indulged him with an answer, “Probably a farmer.”
Both Josh and his younger brother Dylan regularly gave thanks to the farmers when we shared what we were grateful for around the dinner table. Although we didn’t come from a farming background, it was considered a noble vocation in our little family, which is why it seems fitting that Josh has grown up to be a farmer of sorts.
He harvests clay from the land. His market crop is the pottery he creates. With his homemade treadle wheel he makes pots and fires them with wood in a hand built kiln.
Born in Texas and raised in the Mountains of Virginia by a mother from Massachusetts and a father who was born in England, there was really no telling what direction Josh might take in life. I’m not surprised that he’s an artist. He’s been making art since he was old enough to hold a crayon, but the farming connection is one I’ve only recently fully recognized.
Living in the country now, outside of Asheville North Carolina, Josh is a good-old-boy with a twist. In his beat-up truck, he hauls clay instead of manure, bricks instead of animal feed. He carries a racquet for racquetball on the rifle rack in the truck cab. He’s currently building a kiln, the way a farmer might build a barn. He lives in a trailer, but it’s an Airstream called “the land yacht” that looks like a spaceship and has a disco ball hanging from the middle.
“The house is gone,” he told me over the phone the other day. He was referring to the old house on his property that he and some friends recently took down and salvaged for parts.
“You had the bonfire? Did you have friends over to help?”
“Yeah, the Volunteer Fire Department, and now I’m a member,” he said.
“You’re a fireman!?” I asked. “Are they going to train you?”
“I know something about fire, mom,” he reminded me.
After we hung up I remembered that when Josh was four years old he wore a yellow thrift shop slicker, rubber boots, and a red plastic fireman’s hat for weeks at a time. I pulled out the article titled “Building Community” that Josh had recently written for The Log Book, a pottery magazine. In it he described how fire was what first sparked his interest in woodfiring pottery. He wrote: I was mesmerized by the fire – the way it moved through the kiln, its long flames pushing their way through the waves with a velocity that bordered on violence, yet contained a sensitivity that left nothing disturbed.
Okay, a fireman makes sense; he works with fire everyday, but it also makes sense for another reason.
Many of us here in the rural county of Floyd are transplants – artists, crafters, musicians, herbalists, organic farmers – who dropped out of the mainstream to live a country lifestyle in community with others of like mind. During the 70’s and 80’s when the influx first began, locals and newcomers were like two distinct and separate communities. Since then, there’s been a more integration.
It was the kids of the Floyd alternative community who first paved the way for a meeting of the cultures. It wasn’t an easy thing to do and many of them felt like outsiders when they finally made the move from home-schooling (or The Blue Mountain School, our parent-run-cooperative) to public school. Josh and his home-schooled peers had a tight knit community of their own. They were proud of their upbringing, but they also knew the sting of being considered different. Eventually they earned the respect of the local community as they excelled in sports, acted in high school plays, dated local kids, worked at high school jobs, and became salutatorians and valedictorians of their classes.
Josh’s roots are diverse, but he’s grounded in the Appalachian Mountains, the bio-region that includes his childhood in Virginia and his current home in North Carolina. I’m not surprised he’s on the volunteer fire department in the rural town where he lives and belongs. Once he gets more settled, he’ll grow a good garden, and maybe even have a goat and some chickens.
Photos: 1. Josh at home. 2. Josh and girlfriend, Anna, working. 3. Burning down the house. 4. Josh on the tractor. See “The Tearing Down the House photos HERE.Scroll down HERE for more posts about my Asheville Potter Son.
May 6th, 2007 11:23 pm
I think he is doing what he’s perfectly suited for. He sounds very much a product of his diverse upbringing and roots. Josh is a happy person with a vision of his future.
May 6th, 2007 11:45 pm
Great post – your son sounds like a great person. One of our best friends is an artist who works in ceramics. The post reminded me a little of the way my husband was raised, too. His parents moved from city life and careers to rural AR in the late 70s/early 80s to pursue a simpler life.
Michele says hi!
May 7th, 2007 4:06 am
Oh my, what a wonderful post…….. I clicked on EVERY link and read every word……. 🙂 love it, just love it all….. my X brother in law lives in West Virginia :)……. maybe I should visit, but the trouble is….. I would wanna stay LOL…..
x
May 7th, 2007 9:09 am
Josh is amazing and his printed words have a familiarity of his mom.
May 7th, 2007 9:12 am
Great post! I like the way you prevent the noble occupation of “Farming” in a broader perspective. Yes, you son is most definately a farmer. 🙂
Susan
May 7th, 2007 9:40 am
I love your Josh stories…he is one heck of a guy.
May 7th, 2007 10:52 am
Sounds like a good guy. I am more and more convinced that homeschooling beats the heck out of public schools, as long as the parents put their hearts and minds to the task.
May 7th, 2007 11:11 am
Josh was a good candidate for homeschooling because he was self-motivated. Most kids are natural scientists and we mostly have to stay out of their way as we provide a resource, answer a question, or ask one here and there. Our homeschooling wasn’t structured but built around life experiences that happened through-out the day. I kept a journal which documented that learning was indeed going on all day through cooking, building, playing, reading etc.
Both my sons homeschooled till the age of 8 when they entered Blue Mountain School, and then started public in the 6th grade. At that point they weren’t burned out by the system and tended to make the best of school.
May 7th, 2007 11:29 am
colleen- you are such a good momma! this post is very inspiring as i am in the early stages of raising a son….. if sir laughsalot turns out even half as good as your boys , i’ll be happy! 🙂
the fire thing gives me hope, as my son is currently fascinated with it. maybe it will turn into a creative endeavor…. i’ve been worried he might turn into a pyromaniac. :0
i was raised similarly, although not as alternatively. a country girl, but with vast exposure to all types of music, culture, and such that prevented us from becoming the somewhat “insulated” country bumpkins with a little more narrow worldview.
May 7th, 2007 12:07 pm
ps……… how I LOVE Josh’s silver retro caravan 🙂
x
May 7th, 2007 1:07 pm
I enjoyed every word of this entry about Josh. How awesome that he has found his calling and is able to dedicate himself to it. Your journey as a family is so free and happy (not the same as without challenge!).
I hope to be able to say the same of my future adult kids.
May 8th, 2007 12:58 am
We could take up a collection of seeds for his garden.
I have pumpkin seeds to contribute!
May 8th, 2007 8:58 am
I hope he reads these posts about him. They are a tribute from a mother to a son!
May 8th, 2007 9:28 am
Your country boy is an original to be proud of!
August 31st, 2007 4:24 pm
I found this site quite by accident — Josh is a former student of mine at UNC-Asheville, and I occasionally see him at Zuma Cafe. I’m proud that he’s a member of our community. Welcome to Marshall, Josh, and I hope you never have to fight a fire at our old house!
April 8th, 2011 9:44 am
[…] out of Bricks, the Carolina Kiln Build Josh headed up on his property in Marshall County NC, and Country Boy, an essay I wrote about Josh and read on WVTF public radio are HERE. Read about 16 Hands […]