Original subtitles

♪

Oh, yeah, this place was a-booming.

You couldn't get through this town down there,

but it's dead now.

We had eight or ten coal mines shut down at one time.

Come on, everybody in here! Have a seat! Let's go!

It's the same halftime speech every single week.

♪

There's so much negativity surrounding this place

that no one ever focuses on the positive.

They see us as ignorant or hillbillies.

Overdose capital of the East Coast.

There's really more here than just poverty

and illiteracy and drugs.

There's a lot of good people here.

When you walk on this field, you better have tunnel vision.

Don't look left. Don't look right.

You look at that scoreboard,

and that shit burn in your heart, you understand me?

We got some ground to make up,

but once we make that ground up, we'll take off.

Let's go!

♪ I took a walk through this ♪

♪ Beautiful world

♪ Felt the cool rain on my shoulder ♪

♪ Found something good in this ♪

♪ Beautiful world

♪ I felt the rain getting colder ♪

- ♪ La, la - ♪ Sha la, la, la, la

♪ Sha la, la, la, la

- ♪ Sha la, la, la - Sha la, la, la, la ♪

♪ Sha la, la, la, la, la

♪

New York City, where I live.

And it's easy to think,

having lived here nearly all my life,

that this what America looks like, thinks like,

that the things that are important to me

are important to everybody.

That anyplace else is "out there."

Unthinkable.

Maybe even unknowable.

♪

600 miles away from Midtown Manhattan

is McDowell County, West Virginia.

Another America.

In the mind of many of my fellow New Yorkers,

the heart of God, guns and Trump country.

The existential enemy.

♪

♪ There is a place on God's creation ♪

♪ A place of beauty beyond compare ♪

♪ Some people say it's almost heaven ♪

♪ Look for me and you'll find me there ♪

My daddy always told me, you know,

those tornados and hurricanes, they can't get to us.

We're way down in these mountains, down in the holler,

and these mountains protect us.

Here, if you gonna see the sky, you got to look up.

♪ You can find me on the highest mountain ♪

♪ You can find me in the black coal mines ♪

To think about, much less emphasize,

with somebody who comes from

five generations of coal miners

in a place that looks like this

is, to our enduring shame, unthinkable.

Why can't these coal miners get retrained?

Maybe put up solar panels for a living.

Why would these conservative, deeply religious people

vote for a thrice married billionaire New Yorker?

Well, I went to West Virginia and, you know what, screw you.

Here, in the heart of every belief system

I've ever mocked or fought against,

I was welcomed with open arms by everyone.

I found a place both heartbreaking and beautiful,

a place that symbolizes and contains everything wrong

and everything wonderful and hopeful about America.

The town of Welch,

known in its glory days as little New York.

♪

Welch is a very rural area.

I mean, it's an hour away from Walmart,

I mean, if that tells you anything.

It's a real old, historic town built in the 1800s.

The American dream in miniature.

A place where generations of immigrants and dreamers

could work and lift up their family.

The town of Welch, when it was booming,

the sidewalks were so crowded

there would be traffic backed up, like, a mile.

You couldn't find a place to park.

We had three hospitals, had the taxicab stand,

had, like, three jewelry stores.

It was just a wonderful place.

The rest of the country took a lot of money

out of these hills over the decades,

billions and billions of dollars,

and when it became cheaper or more convenient

to pull the coal we needed to power our electrical grids

and to make our steel elsewhere,

this is what was left behind.

But this is not a poverty porn show.

Do not pity the people here,

who, despite what you may think,

are not unrealistic about a return

to the glory days of coal and better times.

I drank coffee from the time I could walk.

They put coffee in your bottle, coffee or wine.

Linda McKinney is a true daughter of Appalachia.

She raised her children here.

Linda's husband, Bob McKinney,

is a longtime mine safety inspector.

Now, your family's originally from Naples?

Is that right? Naples area? Yes. Yes.

Came here in 1923

trying to strike it rich in the coal mines.

My mother died when I was five,

so we went to live with my nonna,

and the first day I was there,

she pulled me up to a cook stove.

This is the dish that my nonna cooked

during hunting season with squirrels.

These aren't squirrels. This is chicken.

Dinner is a not untypical expression

of hardscrabble Appalachian practicality...

Now, I don't measure anything,

so nothing has a recipe here.

- And Neapolitan roots. - Basil.

Home kitchen gardens, hunting, and gathering.

This my dad would call piselles; it's peas.

Ooh, making mama dance.

Now, this is what I'm famous for in these parts.

Have you ever had spaghetti pizza?

- Wow. - No, you haven't.

Don't say you have.

The tomato sauce was made

with Joel's tomatoes at the food bank.

We harvested those yesterday,

and I made spaghetti sauce. Wow.

Nearby, Joel runs an organic

hydroponic farm that supplies the local school system.

The people here are very good.

They'd give you the shirt off their back,

come together in times of tragedy or anything.

Christian values mean something here.

They're practiced on the street and in the home.

Most of you have all got your potatoes, right?

Linda runs Five Loaves and Two Fishes,

a food bank that holds many of the lives here

together during tough times.

16,000 people walk through these doors annually

in a county of 20,000.

Gracious God, we just thank you for this day

that we're able to give food out again.

This is not a regular give out.

Watch over us. Protect us.

Help us to keep cool heads.

♪

Father, we pray over the food we're about to eat

for the nourishment of our body.

Just bless it in the name of Christ.

- Amen. - Amen.

♪

This is our home. We love it here.

We're very close to our church.

Everybody knows everybody.

They're all dying now,

but we're still hanging on, aren't we, honey?

Yeah.

Was there any sizable

Italian-American community here at some time?

Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

A lot of immigrants from different countries came here.

- Still? How large? - No.

We've gone from what, 100,000 to 10,000.

100,000 down to about 10,000-12,000.

In the county itself, as of the last census, so.

Those are some grim statistics.

Yes, yes.

The coal that came out of this area built America, right?

Yes.

McDowell County alone was called

a billion-dollar coal field,

and the people that were in charge at the time

didn't take advantage of all that money

in case something did happen to the coal mine.

The cool thing is that West Virginia's developing

a strong entrepreneur movement

that a lot of people don't know about.

Like with Joe, he started a hydroponic growing.

I mean, not blaming others for their problems,

just trying to solve their own.

A lot of people that's really doing a lot of good

that we don't hear about.

This is our pumpkin pie cake.

Have you ever had a pumpkin pie cake?

You probably won't like it, so we'll take your spot.

We got spoiled. The last coal mines I worked at, I made-

base salary was $94,000 a year.

I also taught vocational school,

and most of the kids that I had said,

"Well, I don't need this.

I'm gonna go in the coal mines."

There's just an education piece there

now that we're trying to instill in some of the people

that still have that mentality that coal was king,

and, you know, we don't doubt that,

but we try to think outside the box and look at some other...

Some other opportunities that might be there.

The job that I have right now

is probably one of the best jobs around here

other than the few guys that works at the coal mines.

I operate this school bus.

♪

I mentioned God, and guns, and Trump.

Get more physical!

Let's go. Run!

- But I forgot another big one: football.

I was born and raised here. I've been here all my life.

Played defensive end for Welch High School.

Graduated there in 1976.

The Mountview Golden Knights have long carried

the mantle of the town as perpetual underdogs.

Mostly the children of miners,

many from very difficult situations at home.

Why you walking? Hurry up!

This week, it's homecoming.

Whistle!

Coach Larry Thomson has, of late,

imposed some order and higher academic standards

on the Knights.

There are high hopes.

♪

Lord, thank you for this food we're about to receive

for the nourishment of our bodies,

and bless these young men and these young women

as they cheer and as they play on the field.

In Jesus name I pray, amen.

Amen.

Let's go eat, man.

Local boosters put together a pregame meal

of ribs, baked potatoes, and chicken.

These kids, you know, they got long days.

They wake up 4:45 or 5:00,

and they don't leave off the hill with us

until about 7:00 after practice,

so, no, they go through a lot.

How many generations of coal in your family?

- At least five. - Wow.

Coach Mike Anderson is second in command.

Coal in anybody else's family? Yeah?

Like, trash man, that's a real common job in my family.

Don't feel bad; trash men

make more money than teachers do, Chavo.

Fred "Fatback" Minko,

Micah "Woody" McLaughlin,

and Cole "Chavo" Anderson

are in many ways typical Mountview players

and students with the hopes and dreams

of, well, any other high school students.

Homecoming. It is.

How big a deal is football in general,

and this game, and what you guys do?

You know, a lot of these kids, they understand

that there's not a lot of resources here,

and before, you can kind of feel the dreariness

that kind of lingered around the community,

but now, you know, with these boys winning,

with the worth ethic they're putting in,

you can feel the support, you know?

Like, we did a few community outreach programs this summer.

They went down to the park and they painted, and they feel it.

They feel that sense of pride.

How has this football program changed your life?

It gives me something to do, stay out of trouble.

Some of these guys have changed 100%.

They had no guidance, no discipline.

They have outside forces that could be pulling them

into different directions,

and they know how that life is gonna go for them,

and as a team in here relying on each other,

their limits are out of this world.

Now, in the past, you could get out of high school,

pretty sure that you were to make big money

in... you know, working in coal.

You don't have that kind of guarantee now.

What do you see yourself doing in ten years?

- Journalism. - Journalism.

I hope in ten years, I hope to be studying my PhD

and be a mechanical engineer.

- Mechanical engineer. - Yes, sir.

I'm definitely gonna be a neuro psychologist.

- Neuro psychologist? - Yep.

You know, what's tougher, life or football?

- Life. - Life, definitely.

There's no halftime in life.

There's no time outs in life.

There's no none of that.

That was a really good answer.

"Love thy brother" is one thing.

That's all well and good, but these guys want to win.

They need to win, and everyone will be watching.

♪ I make my home in mountain people ♪

Why are you dancing with them?

♪ My spirit flowing

♪ Through their veins

♪ My soul will live with them forever ♪

- One, two, three. - Family!

♪

♪ Appalachia is my name

♪

You're a badass.

Did you really just say that?

Them boys say West Virginia girls are gold diggers.

Them boys should know better, because in West Virginia,

there ain't no gold, just black, black coal.

And them girls, them West Virginia girls

don't take no handouts.

They got a living to make, and stripping is hard work.

♪

West Virginia was settled by people who were

fleeing persecution, by homesteaders,

people who just wanted to live their lives their own way,

but the discovery of vast coal reserves

and the big business that grew up around it

changed everything.

Boom, boom.

Them girls shake it.

Boom, boom.

Them girls dance.

♪

Them boys know some of them West Virginia girls

can't count, so they laugh

and call them names like crazy, like whore,

just after they take all their mineral rights.

Boom, boom. She was wrong.

Boom, boom. Forever gone.

Boom, boom.

Them boys,

them girls,

them mountains,

explode.

♪

What is right, what is wrong,

what is mine,

and what gets taken away.

The town of War understands this dynamic well.

It's a former coal and timber camp

that has more than paid its dues.

You can't go wrong with biscuits and gravy.

Works for me. Biscuits, gravy,

two eggs up, and a coffee.

I'm a happy man. Yeah.

The War Café is one of the few

family owned businesses left in town.

♪

It's an obvious "New Yorker arrives in town"

first question: why no cell service?

I've been to the farthest regions of the Arabian desert.

All I got to do is climb a dune, I'm gonna get three bars.

I mean, the mountains, it's hard to get signals

down into each individual valley.

Nick Mullins is a former coal miner turned writer,

working in public outreach trying to help people

transition away from fossil fuel.

Try calling an ambulance here and getting out of the county

to the closest hospital.

They don't deliver babies at the hospital

in this county anymore.

Elaine McMillan Sheldon

is an Oscar nominated documentary filmmaker,

born and raised in Southern West Virginia.

If you were describing this area...

Church going, it's a great part religious,

gun rights, important.

A lot of people of my ilk,

that's not gonna resonate at all.

In fact, it sounds threatening.

Right, but both sides are saying the same thing.

Both sides feel threatened by each other.

- Right. - And I would say a majority

of people that live in this region

want to be left alone.

The traditions of this place,

the things that we value, whether that be

family, interpersonal communication,

not having cell phone technology to distract us,

those type of things sort of butt up against

America's idea of progress,

and it's why we've always been looked at

as being backwards.

♪

Being part of the media but living here

is a really big challenge

because rarely people like myself

actually are the ones that control our narrative,

that control our story.

It was always too easy to come gawk at West Virginia,

to make it the poster child

for whatever the agenda of the moment was.

Lazy depictions of stereotypical West Virginians,

hillbillies and hicks tucked into isolated hollers

to be pitied or made objects of laughter and derision.

If you Google Appalachia, to this day,

you're gonna see dirty faced kids,

barefoot on a front porch,

shaking Lyndon B. Johnson's hand.

There's a lot more to Appalachia than that.

In 1964, Lyndon Johnson declared his War on Poverty.

A good thing, yes?

But the accompanying press tour portraying people here

as an incapable and bewildered,

helpless mass missed the basic essential character,

the pride, and the self-reliant core

of the people here.

That damage is lasting.

When you come in and keep telling us how poor, fat,

how all these things are,

I think we've all felt it at some point: shame.

What should people know about this area that they don't know,

that they're not getting?

Well, I think it's been said,

but it's just not been hit home.

It's just how much that people

in this area have been exploited.

♪

The land agents who came in

and bought up all the mineral rights.

The coal and timber companies that started extracting

and taking everybody's labor rights.

I can't fight a big coal company.

It's got too much money.

Politicians from D.C.

that could make a quick day trip down here

and get a good sound bite.

Who is a miner in this group? Who is it?

Stand up. You're all standing up anyway.

- The drug companies. - 9 million pills

in Kermit, West Virginia over two years.

One pharmacy, 9 million pills.

One pharmacy in a town of 372 people.

There's some political figures that come through

and say that they will try to get away

from the mono economy of coal.

The great issue confronting West Virginia in 1960

is economic development.

But by and large,

the industry doesn't really want that.

Why would they?

If somebody can live here and make a similar living wage

and not have to risk their life,

then they're not going to.

The other side of this is that Democrats, they don't take

a lot of time to understand the problems here.

I just want to know how you can say

you're gonna put a lot of coal miners out of jobs,

and then come in here and tell us

how you're gonna be our friend.

I don't think people understand

just how genuine and wonderful

the people are in these mountains,

people who have just worked all their lives

and who've sacrificed so much for their families.

♪

You cannot talk about West Virginia

without talking about coal,

and coal is a complex issue here,

tied into the cell tissue and the family pride of the people

who have worked in the mines for generations.

♪

Yeah, man, that coal mines is something else,

you know, boy, you got to take care of yourself in there.

That fan is blowing about 200,000 cubic feet of air

into the mine... fresh air.

When you go in that mine, you don't know

whether you're gonna live to see the outside again.

♪

Today we're going about 5,000 feet.

5,000 feet deep?

Yeah, oh, yeah.

It's a little bumpy ride in places.

Pat Graham is the foreman

at the Pay Car mine in Kimball.

Watch your head.

♪

This particular mine is a metallurgical break hole.

- So this is full of steel? - Yes.

The average wage of a miner is 60% greater

than the average wage of all laborers in the United States.

- Wow. - That's pretty phenomenal.

It's easy to see why people in McDowell County

want mining jobs.

♪

I was staying in a town nearby, Welch.

There's no bar.

Wow.

Heavenly Father, we'd like to gather here to thank you

for this opportunity to support our families.

Please watch after us and keep us safe

while we're underground working. Amen.

Amen.

♪

- What do you got? - Bear meat and chicken.

Oh, damn.

I may just put my sandwich back here

if you got bear meat.

♪

That's delicious.

Do you think the country as a whole,

do you think they understand

the coal business at all, what coal mining's about?

- No. - No.

They don't really understand at all.

When you travel from New York to here,

whether you're on a boat, plane, train,

or in the sky or driving on a car,

it's because of a mine.

Mining causes damage to the environment.

Of this there is no doubt,

but what cannot be grown must be mined.

There ain't no cell phones, for instance,

without mines somewhere.

Does anybody think it's gonna come back big time,

like 30 years ago or...

My personal opinion, every time a Republican

is in there, it goes up.

This used to be a solidly democratic state.

What do you think made Trump attractive:

a city slicker, three times married?

- That's easy for me. - Yeah.

Hillary shows up here, and she openly said

she's gonna put a lot of coal miners out of work.

Wrong answer.

How many kids you got?

- I got three. - Three?

- Six. - Four.

If you saw your kids had other options,

would you recommend that they join the family business?

- No, sir, no. - You would say no.

I would about guarantee if everybody here,

their dad who worked in the coal mines

probably told their son, "Don't go into the coal mines."

- That's what I was told. - That's what I told mine.

- Yeah. - I mean, you're gonna

tell them, "No, don't do it,"

but you know, if they do, you're gonna be proud.

I'm proud.

From the stickers we put on our buckets,

from the stickers we put on our hats,

to my coffee mug there, passed down.

I don't mess that thing up, my son goes into the mines,

that's gonna be his.

When and if you retire, what would you like to do?

Where would you like to go?

♪

♪ I'm a stone's throw from the mill ♪

♪ And I'm a good walk to the river ♪

♪ But my working day is over

♪ We'll go swim our cares away ♪

It's so easy from afar to say that coal's time here

has come and gone,

that we should let the miners move, find some other work.

What other work?

This state's biggest employer is now Walmart.

♪ I've seen my share of trouble ♪

♪ And I've held my weight in shame ♪

♪ But I'm baptized in your name ♪

♪ Lovely Lady May

Whatever your views, respect these people,

what they do and what they've paid.

Ladies and gentlemen...

♪

Ready, set, go!

♪

♪ Early in the morning when the sun does rise ♪

♪

♪ Laying in the bed with bloodshot eyes ♪

♪

♪ Run me ragged but I don't fret ♪

♪

♪ Cause there ain't been one slow me down none yet ♪

♪ Get me drinking that moonshine ♪

♪ Get me higher than the grocery bill ♪

♪ Take my troubles to the high wall ♪

♪ Throw them in the river and get your fill ♪

♪ Lord it's a mighty hard living ♪

♪ But it's damn good feeling to run these roads ♪

So these things have to be durable, to say the least?

I mean, you're pounding the hell out of them.

They're actually built to be indestructible.

- Indestructible. - Yeah, that's the plan.

♪

Yeah!

Well, I guess we broke it.

This bat-shit crazy, vertical,

Mad Max drag race come demolition derby

is called rock bouncing.

Keep my neck from bouncing around too much?

Yeah, and what they're actually designed for

is major collisions,

and it keeps your head from tearing off your body.

Adam Ringer is a native son, jack of many trades,

and a man who's all too happy

to spend the day trashing some hills

just to show me a good time.

♪ Get me drinking that moonshine ♪

♪ Get me higher than the grocery bill ♪

♪ Lord it's a mighty hard living ♪

♪ But a damn good feeling to run these roads ♪

♪

- So that was pretty badass. - Yeah.

♪

♪

All right, you got your frog legs, turtle patties.

Eric Williams is a hunter and trapper

who caught most of this meal

wading waist deep in the swamp on his property.

- You ever ate snapping turtle? - Oh, I'm definite...

I'm not missing that.

Small mouth bass, catfish, barbecued and fried.

Wow, what a spread.

♪

Trail riding ATVs, off-roading,

and the supporting industries

are an up-and-coming play for tourism in this state.

There are thousands of miles of trails

running through the hills in places like this.

Anybody with any off-road vehicle can come:

dirt bikes, four wheelers, mega trucks.

King Knob Motorsports Park,

owned by Mike Hanson and Amber Williams.

Do they have to sign a release before they come on?

- They do. - Yeah, that's smart.

Yeah.

We actually climb stuff that's vertical.

- Straight up? - Yep.

Yeah, this race this weekend, the last 30 feet of the hill,

the second hill, was actually vertical.

You had to hit it with enough momentum

to skip up over it and land on top.

- Wow. - Yeah.

That's why you got to have a lot of horsepower.

But too much power can get you

in a lot of trouble also. Oh, really?

- Oh, yeah. - Exactly right.

Horsepower's not always the key to success,

but it's always a lot of fun.

Hopefully, you can come back and try the Barbie Jeep thing.

♪

Guns are a fact of life around here.

Whether as a means to defend your isolated home,

get yourself dinner when

there's no place else to get it,

or just for the fun of shooting stuff,

the feeling that gun ownership is an absolute right,

immutable and non-negotiable, runs deep here.

Everybody's backyard look like this?

- Uh... - Ours does.

Justin and Ashley McMillion

are the nice couple next door...

If unusually heavily armed.

Yeah!

Our muzzle brakes are the only kind

that actually reduce recoil,

muzzle rise, and flash.

They own JMac Customs, a home business that designs

and builds custom weapons and parts.

So this keeps you on target and makes sure

that you're safe while you're shooting.

You put the mag in.

- Safety off. - Safety off.

You got it. All right.

Three, two, one.

Now, to be clear,

these are fully automatic firearms.

They cannot be purchased legally by individuals

anywhere,

but as they're in the business,

these guys could apply for special,

highly vetted ATF licenses

for purposes of product development and testing.

That was just really... That was a lot of fun.

I'm a child. What can I say?

Who wants to blow up pumpkins?

Just mixed up a binary explosive.

♪

Some are small, and some are big.

You only know when you shoot it, so.

Ooh, a surprise! I love surprises.

Three, two, one.

Whatever you feel about gun rights or access to weapons,

there is an undeniable,

visceral thrill to blowing shit up.

People who like guns like them for a reason.

That's a whole lot of America right there.

Yeah, not mine.

♪

Venison or beef, with or without cheese.

- Venison and cheese. - Yeah.

- Wow, a nice selection. - The only way to go.

That's what I'll have.

Heavenly Father, we bow in your presence.

We just thank you for this day,

and most of all, we just thank you

for the liberties and freedoms

that our country provides

and you have provided.

- Amen. - Amen.

So everybody born and bred here, or...

- Lisa's from California. - Mm-hmm.

So when you came here, that was the first time

you shot a gun, wasn't it? Yeah.

Show him your arm.

Yeah, show him your tat. She got an AK tat.

AK tattooed on her arm.

I lived in Canada for a long time.

Stayed in England for quite a while.

Sweden for quite a while.

No matter how long I'm gone, I always come back.

You can't just load the Jeep up with a bunch of guns

and stay out there for seven days and, you know...

You can't really do that anywhere else.

That's probably one of the greatest things

about West Virginia.

You know, we can enjoy whatever we want to enjoy.

I'm not trying to force my opinions on anybody else.

That being said, we will defend ours.

- Yeah. - I was guessing.

Yeah.

Look, I grew up in an environment,

you see somebody at the supermarket carrying a handgun,

that would be cause for red alert.

Do you think there can be common ground between somebody

who grew up absolutely thinking guns are a bad thing?

I say no.

Okay, you're an honest man, and I appreciate it.

Why do you...

I'm a responsible gun owner.

Why should I be crippled in what I'm able to do

as far as protecting my family?

Look, I hear you, but there's a fair number of people

in this world who are just, you know,

too dumb to pour piss out of a boot.

You know, 90-year-old drivers in Florida,

they still got their license, but should they be driving?

- Right. - A few years ago,

my father was involved in a shooting

at his pharmacy that he works at.

A man came in. He had a weapon.

My dad conceal carries.

He has a license to conceal carry.

He drew his weapon and fired.

If they take guns away from law-abiding citizens,

then it's just gonna be the criminals that have it.

It should be pointed out...

It has to be pointed out, faced head-on...

That shortly after we filmed here,

a gunman in Las Vegas, with a perfectly legal weapon,

fired off 1,100 rounds in ten minutes,

wounding 422 people and killing 58.

Shortly after that, 17 students

were murdered in Parkland, Florida,

with a legally purchased semi-automatic rifle,

and the list goes on, with victims of mass shootings

that have happened since this conversation

measured in the hundreds,

so there is that to think about too.

I don't know whether the founding fathers

anticipated the kind of firepower

that we played with today.

We live in a different world.

There are the nice people who live next door who like guns,

and, unfortunately, there seem to be a whole lot of people

who aren't nice at all.

Get behind cover!

- Oh, my God, oh, my God! - Go back, go back!

One would hope there is at least some middle ground.

Oh, my God.

♪

They call this Burning Fork Holler.

What is a holler?

I mean, it's spelled "hollow," but it's pronounced "holler."

A holler, to me, is where everybody is united.

Everybody sticks with one another

and takes up for one another.

♪

Lola Kline is a single mother of four children,

and, in many ways, emblematic of both the difficulties

and inherent strengths of people around here.

Where do you find them? In the trees or on the ground?

- Trees. - Mostly up the trees?

Squirrels are more like- it's a waiting game.

Find us a place to sit and watch for movement.

She and her best friend, LaShawna Huff,

hunt together, raise kids together,

and do their best to get by in a changing world

that can get very hard.

We got to keep our eye out, too, timber rattlers.

They good eating, rattlesnake?

I've never ate one.

I seen a rattlesnake coming this way,

and I go that way.

When you'd first go hunting, how old were you?

My grandpa took me when I was about six.

I just love this place.

Having a bad day, you can always go up in the mountains.

All that changes.

♪

♪

My mom, she used to cook it and fix squirrel gravy.

Lola's neighbor's name may be Drana Lester,

but everybody here calls her Mom.

58 years. I was born and raised here.

Do you ever think about leaving?

No.

She often cooks and helps look after the kids.

Biscuit? Homemade biscuits.

Homemade gravy. Fried taters.

Fried potatoes, excellent.

And Lola does her best to look after her.

That's what people do in the hollers.

Dear Lord, we come to you this day.

Thank you for this food and bless the hands

that fixed this food.

Thank you for each and every living day. Amen.

Amen, and thank you for letting us make more friends.

Thank you for having me.

Mmm-mmm. I've been waiting all day for this.

Are you working on a farm nearby, is that right?

Yes.

After strip mines are done here,

the land's usually-

I mean, it's just useless.

So we're trying to make a purpose.

Pumpkins, watermelon.

We're just trying to figure out what will grow on it.

- So there's life after coal? - There's life after coal.

For about eight years, I worked on strip mines.

I could probably get a job now,

but I don't want to mess up a good thing.

So what do you think about that squirrel?

- Oh, man, it's good. - Good, ain't it?

Thank you.

They call it wild and wonderful West Virginia.

It is. And your girls are how old?

My girls are nine, eight, six, and three.

You taught any of them to shoot yet?

- Yeah, all of them can shoot. - All of them?

All of them.

They think their mommy's a big hero too

because she killed that big buck last year.

Yeah, how big was this thing?

- 250. Weighed 250 pounds. - Yeah.

You drag that thing out of the woods yourself?

- Mm-hmm. - Dress it?

- Yes. - Cook it?

- Yep. - We don't rely on nobody.

Yeah, there ain't nothing I can't do,

and if I don't know how to do it, I'll learn.

We're not a bunch of pregnant women,

barefooted with no teeth.

I got all of mine, you see?

What's the best thing about living in this area,

and what's the... What's the worst thing?

The best thing is the people here.

You always got somebody that has your back, no matter what.

Like, I couldn't move away from here.

I'd be so sick. Homesick.

There's probably nobody in these hollers

that I couldn't go say,

"Hey, I need... I'm hungry. Would you fix me a sandwich?"

And the worst thing?

See somebody that's on pills,

or drunk, or out here just fighting.

- What can you do? - Pray for them.

That's all we can do.

♪ Oh little Liza

♪ Oh little Liza

♪ Little Liza Jane

♪

♪ Tell me how you want it baby ♪

♪ You know I need you baby

♪ Grant my wishes

♪ Shots off to you wanna roll with the fellas ♪

♪ Shakin' the ish, the hips all that ♪

♪ Like that, make it hard to fight back ♪

For years here, the base was what was called

a West Virginia Democrat:

hard line on the second amendment,

religious, but pro-union,

with a record of voting reliably blue.

Those days are gone.

You know, I'm a high school dropout.

Military, you know, I was... I'm a veteran.

There is a smell in the earth itself here in West Virginia

that, when I was away, when I was in the army,

that your soul rots away.

It feels like you can't smell it, or you look up

and you see the sun all the way set.

Here it disappears around 4:00.

Allen Lardieri is a former tanker in the U.S. Army

and what he calls Constitutional Conservative.

He is solidly pro-Trump Republican,

however distant from Mr. Trump's New York City

background and gold-plated lifestyle he may be.

You'll see a lot of parallels in rural West Virginia

that you see in the inner cities.

I see a lot of parallels to places I've been.

School districts that are starved.

- That's right. - Opioid addiction.

Teenage pregnancy.

Food deserts, you know,

where there ain't nothing but fast food.

Exactly. Okay. Yeah. Where's our Whole Foods?

It's non-existent, sir.

Why would West Virginia overwhelmingly go for a guy,

Donald Trump, who's never changed a tire in his life,

who sits on a gold toilet?

Yeah, everybody else talks around this, whatever.

This man talks just like us,

like how we talk to each other in the mines.

It ain't pretty. It's straight talk.

Well, you know, they say he tells it like it is.

I don't know... I don't know that that's true.

He says outrageous things.

I guess that's refreshing. Oh, yeah.

You know, I gave up on political saviors

a long time ago.

I believe it's naive to go ahead and say

that I think that there's gonna be one individual,

especially in government,

that's gonna turn everything around.

Trump can bring change, and it's very quite simple.

His offensive, incendiary nature

can send a word out to these assholes...

I'm sorry... these individuals that so called represent us

in congress, senate, whatever.

If people get frustrated enough,

they're gonna put somebody in there that's not like you.

You know, what I hope that things

have come out of this is national dialogue.

We have to start talking. We have to do it.

If he'd stop tweeting from the toilet at 4:00

in the morning, I'd feel a lot more comfortable,

you know what I'm saying? A little impulse control, dude.

♪

These right here, they're called wood nettle.

They've got a really nice kind of aromatic quality to them.

♪

With the pawpaws, it's better

if you can kind of, like, feel them,

see if they're ripe.

America's forgotten fruit: the pawpaw.

Forgotten when most Americans

stopped going to the forest for their food,

but in West Virginia, they were never forgotten.

So that's a pawpaw ice cream with some candied wildflowers,

and then this is an old-fashioned vinegar pie.

It's in a class of pies called desperation pies

that try to create something like a lemon pie

and you don't have lemon juice. What do you do?

Put some vinegar and some nutmeg together

and give it that same kind of tang.

Appalachia has a rich and deep culinary culture,

increasingly fetishized, riffed on,

appropriated for the genteel tastes of a hipster elite

willing to pay big bucks for what used to be,

and still is in many cases, the food of poverty.

We see that ramps are selling for $30 a pound

in New York City that were harvested in West Virginia,

and what's West Virginia seeing from that?

Probably a guy that got about 2 bucks a pound.

It becomes just another extractive industry.

- Right. - Like coal or timber.

And you sort of start to see that with foods.

That's the story of West Virginia.

Yeah.

Chef Mike Costello and partner Amy Dawson

are looking to keep that culture alive and appreciated

and paying off locally for the region it originated in.

I also have some buttermilk poached trout

that we're gonna put on there with some pickled rhubarb.

Yeah, it'll be good.

They run a traveling kitchen

that brings local ingredients,

Appalachian recipes,

and the stories behind them around the state.

Lost Creek Farm is their place.

♪

A working farm they're rebuilding by hand.

♪

And the nucleus of that effort is the garden.

♪

♪

We have two different varieties

that we're picking today.

The one are the Logan Giants.

This seed is Logan Giant seed,

and they're an heirloom strain of bean,

and I've had these seeds for 40 years.

I saved these for 40 years.

This guy down at the end of the table,

Lou, is in his 90s.

He said it's important for somebody

to carry on these traditions

and gave me his stock of heirloom beans this year.

This is what heirloom looks like outside of Holy Foods.

Bloody Butcher corn,

Fat Horse beans,

Candy Roaster squash,

and Homer Fike's Yellow Ox Heart tomatoes.

Nice and soft, and it's like a really sweet green tomato.

These ingredients define a near-lost time and flavor.

This is an Italian heirloom beet that

was brought to West Virginia by an Italian immigrant,

so it's, like, it's called a Chioggia.

The story of hardship and resourcefulness.

We've got some sweet corn chowder.

We're gonna just, like, drizzle a little bit of this

nettles and wild apples.

Next, we've got these crackers.

They're broken communion wafers.

You know, the way that Appalachian food

has always worked

is you work with within your means,

and you create something pretty special

out of what you have at your disposal,

and we've kind of suffered from this in a way.

It created this sort of rush towards the middle class

and a rush towards the perception

that we're better than the foods

that we used to have to eat.

- Mm-hmm. - Yeah, I think we were taught

a lot to be embarrassed

of our, you know, hillbilly past, you know?

- Oh, absolutely. - Right.

I remember coming home from school and my dad

having hog's head on the kitchen table

making head cheese and sauce, like,

I'd been mortified if somebody came over and saw that.

Yeah, a friend of mine's grandmother once told me,

"You know, we used to make this because we were poor.

Now we make it because it's effing good."

- Ooh, what's that? - This is some

buttermilk fried rabbit,

rabbit that we raise here on the farm.

Oh, yes.

A little bit of chowchow, some fresh maple syrup.

♪

Is it gross that we slaughter rabbits right behind us?

Yeah.

This is some venison harvested from the woods here.

It's got a wild chicory root rub to it.

♪

Some chanterelles and sorghum syrup and some wild pears.

Wow.

Mike and Amy's friends are a cross section of people

invested in West Virginia's potential.

Which we've been drinking here,

the young or the old school cider?

We actually came across a recipe from 1822

with elderberry and cider,

and it's a native plant here,

so we put a little bit in there to see what it would do,

and it came out wonderful.

You're using only West Virginia apples?

I am only using West Virginia apples.

- That can't be cost effective. - It can and can't be.

Nobody's talking about money at this table though.

This is another thing for me.

We're often talked about as being this impoverished state.

We are rich, I mean, as can be, in food and the things

that we make as a culture and as a community.

When you're living on the land

and doing what your ancestors did,

you feel a connection that you can't get anywhere else.

You know, you look at something

as simple as these pole beans.

It took our community to save that seed,

and every time we put food on the plate,

there's a story about the way

that people have always kind of bound together to survive.

♪

♪

The people around this fire

are looking hopefully to the future.

They are friends. They are interdependent.

A community. An economy.

♪

♪

Lord, bless everybody that's going to the game.

Bless these young men and these young women

as they cheer and as they play on the field.

Lord, guide us to victory this evening,

keep everybody safe to and from the game.

In Jesus' name I pray.

- Amen. - Amen.

♪

It's Friday night. Homecoming.

The Summers County Bobcats

versus the Mountview Golden Knights.

- Hey, I love you, man. - I love you too.

And for the citizens of Welch and McDowell County,

this is a very big deal, indeed.

♪

Hi.

♪ What so proudly we hailed ♪

Everybody knows everybody else's families,

asks after their kids by name.

Mixed couples are common.

There's an easy familiarity between people here.

The 2017 Mountview High School

Homecoming Queen is...

Bang-bang on three. One, two, three.

Bang-bang!

Get down!

Get down.

♪

So very much a West Virginia tradition,

coal mining and the military.

Yeah, here for 10 1/2 years.

Navy, but I've been around and back.

You've been around and end up back here.

Back here.

Monica Barner is a Mountview Alum.

Her husband, Sly, is a coach.

Her sons, Elijah and Eliffe, are on the team.

Her daughter, Elisa, is a cheerleader.

So it's personal for her.

Born and raised here, went to school here.

Wouldn't have it no other way.

A 78-yard run.

- Oh, my. - Loose pigskin.

Come on, boys, get your head in the game!

♪

Garnet Edwards Junior is a former Mountview player

who went on to play college ball.

In the state of West Virginia,

we got two things going on for us:

that's church and sports.

Now, if we lose a game, it's like losing our best friend.

♪

Go, D!

Hey, you got it, you got it!

Stop him, stop him!

- Oh, shucks. Oh. - Oh.

- Pass is complete. - Come on, man.

Fourscore.

♪

The Bobcats 20, the Golden Knights nothing.

♪

Fellas...

I just want you to play hard.

I just want you to play hard and make smart decisions.

♪

♪ Daddy worked like a mule mining Pike County coal ♪

♪ He messed up his back and couldn't work anymore ♪

♪ He said one of these days

♪ You'll get out of these hills ♪

♪

♪ Daddy I've been trying I just can't catch a break ♪

♪ There's too much in this world ♪

♪ I can't seem to shake

♪

- There you go. - Let's go, let's go!

♪

♪ See the ways of this world ♪

♪ Will just bring you to tears ♪

♪ Keep the Lord in your heart ♪

♪ And you'll have nothing to fear ♪

♪ Live the best that you can

♪ And don't lie and don't steal ♪

It's time to turn up a whole nother level; it's time.

♪ Keep your nose on the grindstone ♪

♪ And out of the pills

Yeah!

♪ Daddy I've been trying

♪ I just can't catch a break

♪ There's too much in this world I can't seem to shake ♪

- There you go! - Touchdown!

Whoa! That's a good move! Yeah!

♪ But I remember your words ♪

♪ Lord they bring me chills

♪ Keep your nose on the grindstone ♪

♪ And out of the pills

♪ Keep your nose on the grindstone ♪

Clock! Clock's running!

♪

This is the game.

We win or lose on this play.

Let's go, Mountview!

Oh, shit.

♪

♪

Good job, young man!

Good job, coach. Good job. Yes, sir.

We will win!

♪

You're never gonna forget this ball game.

Whenever you're in a bind, you're stuck in a corner,

you know what I'm saying, fight through it.

Fight your way out of it.

In anything you do in life,

in school, in football, as long as you've got me,

and these coaches, this community, that's all you need.

Yeah!

I grew up here.

Got married here. It's home.

Oh, my goodness, there he is! Oh, I'm so proud of you!

There's more here than just poverty

and illiteracy and drugs.

There's a lot of good people here.

We all do care about each other.

So proud, so proud.

What are any of our hopes and dreams?

A roof over our heads, some security,

maybe even some happiness for our children,

the opportunity to be proud of something,

we all have that in common.

I wish y'all could come down here and see us soon,

and when y'all do, I hope y'all enjoy it.

This is America, and if you can't embrace it,

no matter how bitterly and fiercely we may disagree,

there is no hope for any of us.

I've been living here 65 years.

I wouldn't trade it for nothing.

I guess I'll be here till they cut the lights out.

Family on three. One, two, three.

Family!