The Other World of
John Foster West
In (hose days it was a different life
in the rugged mountain country.
By NANCY ROBERTS
Shifting masses of clouds shrouded
the ridge of mountains with tall, fara¬
way peaks becoming suddenly visible
through the fog only to disappear and
minutes later reappear in mystic, eerie
fashion. The pewter colored sky poured
forth a steady drizzle of rain.
It was the afternoon Appalachian
novelist and poet, John Foster West,
had chosen for us to accompany him as
he revisited his childhood home in the
red clay hills of Wilkes County.
We left Boone riding with John Fos¬
ter, a tall, lean mountain man who
maneuvers his green Volkswagen with
a kind of restrained ferocity, gathering
all the speed the car’s tiny motor has.
zooming furiously past other vehicles
on the downgrade and muttering un¬
der his breath if a car pokes along
ahead when there is a pass lane. Watch¬
ing John's intent, Romanesque profile
it was easy to visualize his father stand¬
ing behind a tree near his house, rifle
pointed, ready to take care of any
"devilment" from a trifling neighbor.
Have you ever felt that you have
visited a place before, seen the houses,
known the people? As John Foster
West, the sixth, drove into his boyhood
world, there was the feeling of having
been there for it was just as he had
described it in his novel, Time Was.
The countryside, the houses, the old
. . . this cobin, the crodlc of hi» very flesh ond
»pi«it ... loll photos by Bruce Roberts».
store building — all took on an un¬
canny familiarity.
“That is where ’Doc’ Ellis lived, and
over there was Cousin Bill’s house.
We're passing the store in the book,"
said West, and then he pointed to the
wooded hilltop where the home of the
hated Hill Anderson had once stood.
It was a strange experience leaving to¬
day and floating with the whisps of mist
right through a penetrable veil into the
world of Time Was — its people and
places unbelievably real.
Roads that were dirt when John
West's father travelled them are now
paved, but they are still the old
wagon roads twisting and writhing
like a snake around the sides of
the mountains following meandering
stream beds as they had done since the
first frontiersmen settled these hills.
Turning off on a slippery, red clay rib¬
bon of a road that undulated over the
hills for several miles, the green Volks¬
wagen finally slowed and stopped. On
the left was a field of wet, orange
broomstraw and set back from the
road, perhaps, a hundred strides,
slumped a timeworn cabin, its boards
blackened and weathered.
John Foster looked out at the cabin
through narrowed eyes glistening with
the images of a yesterday far behind
him, but still the cradle of his very
flesh and spirit. He walked the over¬
grown, scraggly path and stood on the
rotted porch. We followed him through
the door quietly not wanting to inter¬
rupt his thoughts or anything out of
. . . if wos cosy to «isuolize bis fother standing behind a tree ncor his house, rifle pointed, ready to
toke core of ony "devilment" from
о
trifling neighbor.
THE STATE, JULY 15. 1972
17